


we are okay

by annangst



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Coming Out, Falling In Love, Flatmate AU, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Rating May Change, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-11
Updated: 2019-03-29
Packaged: 2019-10-26 05:55:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 31,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17740238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annangst/pseuds/annangst
Summary: dan is looking for a place to stay. phil is looking for a flatmate.excerpt chapter 09:Dan and Phil look like day and night next to each other, different but kind of the same, like polar opposites of desaturation in front of the colourful background that is Phil’s bedroom.





	1. flatmates

**Author's Note:**

> so this is what happens when i drop out of uni and dan and phil decide to go on a break. this hiatus is not doing me any good y'all.
> 
> jk. anyway. i'm really nervous about posting this lmao ⊙﹏⊙
> 
>  **general disclaimer:** i got the idea for this from a tumblr prompt i saw a while ago so chances are this au has been done a thousand times already and the beginning is probably going to sound familiar if you have read any of them, but i can promise you i added my own little twist to it *evil laugh and demonic hand rubbing*
> 
> fair warning, this is probably going to be long (the doc has currently 30'000 words and uhh, let's say i'm not done in the _slightest_ ). so buckle up, buttercup, get some tea and a snack. also, i'm the biggest sucker for original (side) characters, so there's that.
> 
> (also pls give my first person pov a chance i know this style is kinda rare in this fandom lmao)

_Looking for someone to share my 2-bedroom flat with! 14th floor. Floor-to-ceiling windows! Features tolerant neighbours, good wifi, and a flatmate who's in desperate need of someone to play video games with!_  
_You get bonus points if you have a dog!_

 

"What about this one?" Marcia taps her finger repeatedly against the cardboard of the bulletin board.

"If it says _Take turns cooking dinner_ it's a no from me," I sigh, looking at what she's pointing at anyway. The message is scribbled on a piece of blue-green construction paper in handwriting that looks kind of like it's trying to flee from the paper. I skim over the message. "No bonus for me then. Also, fourteenth floor." I make a gagging noise. "That's worse than someone expecting me to cook them dinner every other day."

Marcia shakes her head, her curls jumping all over the place. I'm still a little mad that she abandoned her straighteners and therefore left me alone with my emo fringe. _What a break up can do to you…_ "How did I ever put up with you? You're on a whole other level of laziness, Howell, I swear to god."

" _Did_?" I shoot her a toothy grin, the one I know melts her every time. "You're kind of _still_ putting up with me."

She rolls her eyes and then, out of nowhere, smacks her hand flatly against the back of my head.

"Abuse!" I protest immediately.

"Not even our break up grants me an escape from you," she whines, "All hope is lost."

My grin is still on my face. Maybe, if I still had any feelings for her, it would crack a little bit at the mentioning of the end of our relationship. But it doesn't. I'm not going to lie though, the first couple of weeks without her were hard. I'm glad we both came around and decided we were better off as friends than strangers.

"Anyway." She drives one hand through her hair and squints at the bulletin board again. "Phil. He sounds a bit like you, to be honest."

"Fourteenth floor," I remind her.

"I'm sure there's a lift." She already has her phone in hand, hastily typing in the number that is written under Phil's signature on the piece of paper.

"Wait. Are we calling him _now_?" I ask, a little panic swinging with my voice.

"Dan, you need a place to stay! Of course you're ringing him as soon as possible." She looks up from the screen. "It's not my fault you leave everything until literally the last minute, mate. Deal with it." And with that, she shoves her phone at me.

I mean, she's right. Of course she's right, she always is. I need a place to stay because there is no way in hell I'm spending next semester in a dorm that's approximately the size of a shoebox with a dude that has some serious constipation issues.

There is also no way in hell I’m going to spend my summer at my parent’s house, so there's that.

Marcia has already pressed the button on her phone and the dialing sound cuts right through my thoughts. Seconds later, there is a crack and then a voice: "Hello?"

"H-hey," I say quickly, almost stumbling over the word, "Is this Phil? Here's Dan. I'm calling because of, uh, the flat, I guess."

"Oh, yeah. Hold on a sec." There are sounds of cars crashing into each other and then a scream. "Crap. Okay, here we go. So, the flat."

"Yeah," I scratch my neck, shooting glares at Marcia. She's ignoring them. "I mean. Uh, are you still looking for someone to share it with?"

"Absolutely," Phil says.

"Okay."

"Uhm, do you, like, want to come over and have a look?" he asks.

"Oh. Yes. How about…" I kick my foot against Marcia's shin. Not too hard that it hurts but enough that she has to look at me.

"In an hour?" Phil says then, "I mean, unless you have plans tonight. I kind of meant it when I wrote that I'm desperate for someone to play video games with me."

I can't help but grin at that. Marcia cocks one eyebrow at me. "Yeah, I just heard you losing at Mario Kart if I'm not mistaken."

"That's kind of your fault because you called me mid-rainbow race," he says, "I'm not really good at multitasking."

"I'm glad speaking to me was a higher priority for you, then."

Marcia's eyebrows shoot up just a little higher, almost disappearing under her curly mess of hair.

"You should be," Phil says, "So. In an hour? I'll just text you the address?"

"Uhm, yeah," I nod, but then I stop sharp. I'm still holding Marcia's phone in hand. "Actually, no. I mean, yes, but—"

"You're confusing me, Dan."

I hurry to explain, "I rang you from my friend's phone. But I can give you my number and then you can text me the address."

"Alright."

 

***

 

There is a lift. But, for whatever reason, it stops on the tenth floor. So I have to conquer four more flights of stairs before I finally stand in front of what could possibly become my new home. I knock my fist against the door three times.

I have to wait for the better part of a minute before the door finally opens, revealing a tall, black-haired man. The first thing I notice is the fringe, which is basically my exact hairstyle but mirrored. That's a rare sight, these days. The next thing doesn't just _catch_ my attention, it completely _captures_ it. His eyes. Bright and blue. My brain's first instinct is to compare them to something ridiculous like the sky or the ocean but quickly comes to the conclusion that that wouldn't do them justice.

"Dan?" he asks.

I snap out of my trance, "Yes. And you're Phil?"

"Exactly," he grins, taking a step back and holding the door open for me, "Welcome to my crib."

I snort out a laugh, squeezing past him. The hallway of the apartment is quite narrow but it soon opens up into a rather large living and cooking space. It even has a breakfast bar! And the promised floor-to-ceiling windows!

"Wow." The word escapes my mouth before I can think of any better. _Subtle, Dan._ But I mean, this flat isn't just an upgrade from my stinky dorm at Manchester University, it's an upgrade to every _house_ I have ever lived in. And I haven't even seen the bedroom yet.

Phil stands awkwardly in the middle of the room, hands shoved deep inside the pockets of his black jeans.

After the first impression, the room suddenly becomes a little more real. I notice a crack in the wall where the paint is a little chipped, as well as the obscene amount of video game discs shoved halfway under the coffee table. There is a used mug and bowl on the kitchen sink, and two cupboard doors stand open.

"I always forget this." As if he read my mind, Phil bolts past me, slamming the cupboards shut.

I shoot him a sheepish grin, mostly because I'm not sure what else to do. Slowly spinning around my own axis, I take in the wide space inch by inch. I stop sharp when my eyes land on a wooden something that stands under a massive poster of various _Muse_ albums. I swallow the urge to comment on the poster and instead, reach out to touch the piano.

No wonder I didn't see it immediately. The keys are covered by the wooden lid, and the entire surface is covered with house plants and tiny action figures.

"Do you play?" I ask, even though considering the state the instrument is in, it's pretty obvious that he does not.

"No. It's one of the things the guy that has lived here before left behind," Phil says, "Do you?"

"I _can_ play," I say, "I had lessons when I was a kid, but I hated it. Since then I've been teaching myself on one of those really crappy keyboards. I haven't actually played in… since I started uni."

"You can, uhm… open it," Phil suggests, "I like piano music."

I give him a little look. I can't tell if he's being honest or not. But there's no chair or bench in front of the piano anyway, so I don't have to actually make a decision. "Nah. Can I see the bedroom?"

Phil's smile grows a bit wider and he nods. He leads me back down the narrow corridor to the only door on the left. He gestures toward it, "After you."

I open the door with a little creaking noise, stepping inside the room.

I didn't exactly expect it to be so bright, but I guess that's what happens when you occupy basically an entire wall of a room with one giant window and paint the others a brilliant white. The room isn't big, but it's still about double the size of my dorm. There's an empty bedframe pushed against the wall next to the door.

"That's another thing he left behind. I would obviously help you get rid of it before you move your own stuff in."

I look from the frame up to Phil and back down. "Actually," I say, "I don't really have a bed as I can't move the one I have in my dorm out of it. So I could just… get a mattress for that one." It sounds a little bit like a question. "Or is that gross?"

"I don't think it's gross," Phil shrugs, "It's smart actually."

I smile briefly at him. Somehow, I get a feeling that Phil is different from a lot of people I have met.

"My room is right opposite this one," he explains, "and the bathroom is next to it. It's easily the smallest room of the flat and the shower is this weird bathtub-hybrid, but—"

"Show me," I say simply.

So Phil does. And he's right, the bathroom is tiny. The windows that my room has in abundance completely lack here, but I'm sure we could make it work. We won't stand squished together like this in here like we're doing right now in the future, at least.

Phil also lets me peek inside his room. It's about the same size as mine, and it quite frankly makes my eyes hurt. The walls are plain white and the floor is dark wood, but everything else screams in colour. There are posters, plants, plushies, even the bedding looks like a unicorn vomited on it.

"I didn't tidy in here," he says, kicking what I think is one of his boxers under the bed, "It’s normally not this bad but I had to— I don’t know. Don’t judge me."

"You’re an adult with about one hundred plushies sitting on a drawer next to their bed, why would I judge you?" I grin at him.

"Oi," he makes, "I don’t like that word."

"Which one?"

"Adult," he says, frowning, "Plus, I don’t trust people who don’t have plushies. No matter what age."

"Right," I say, secretly a little relieved that, if I move in, I won’t have to hide my Totoro under my bedsheets anymore.

"Anyway," Phil closes the door to his room, leaving us in the small corridor, chest to chest, "That’s it, no secret rooms behind bookshelves, or trap doors, or attics — unfortunately."

"I like it." Which is a complete understatement, to be honest. "But. I never asked you about the rent…" In hindsight, this is stupid. Stupid of me not asking about it right away and stupid of Phil not writing it in the description. Suddenly, the tall floor-to-ceiling windows make my tummy churn. _I won’t be able to afford this_.

"It’s not too much actually." Phil’s eyes wander over my face for a moment, then he seems to realise just how close we are standing to each other, and he takes a step into the direction of the kitchen. "Do you have like, a job?"

"I used to, but then I sold an axe to a child."

"You did _what_?"

I wave my hand, "Long story. I’m looking for something new at the moment. Maybe the Starbucks down the road is hiring."

It’s _technically_ true. I _did_ sell an axe to a child back when I was working at a DIY store a few months back. But to be fair, I was going through a hard time. Sometimes I get these _episodes_ , for the lack of a better word for it, and I just… I can’t get myself to care about anything then. Plus I was going through the breakup with Marcia then as well. So no offence, but I could have done worse things than sell an axe to a ten-year-old.

"I support that. You can bring me caramel macchiatos every night then!" Phil sounds delighted at the thought. Maybe I should warn him about my intense procrastination skills right now so he won’t be disappointed when he doesn’t get any sugary sweet drinks in, let’s say, another two months.

 

Phil was right after all, the rent isn’t _that_ bad. With the savings I still have from my job at the DIY store I should be good for the next three months or so. That’s about enough time to find another job, I reckon.

I don’t know how and why but somehow Phil and I end up on the couch in the living room, feet on the coffee table, playing Mario Kart. Between laughter and curses, he asks me about uni.

I promptly drive my character into an evil-looking crab on Cheep-Cheep Beach. "Law," I mutter.

"Oh. Wow. I didn’t…"

"Expect that? Yeah." I get that a lot. More often than not people are surprised when they hear me saying I study law at university. It seems like everyone _but_ my parents see the misfit of it all. But I don’t really want to dive into _that_ part of the Existential Crisis right now, so instead I ask Phil, "What about you?"

"I graduated from York earlier this year," he says, boosting over the finish line into the final lap. His character, Yoshi, makes a joyful noise as he speeds into first place. I’m slowly catching up again, though. "Graduated, had a gigantic breakdown, moved here."

I glimpse at him for the fraction of a second. Normally, I absolutely _hate_ when people use the word _breakdown_ in such a casual way, because, let’s be real, most of them do not know what an actual breakdown feels like. But with Phil it’s different, or at least it _feels_ different the way he says it.

"I’m that kid that spends as much time as possible in school so they don’t have to face the real world," he says, biting down on his bottom lip as he tries to tackle my Mario Kart character so I don’t make it over the finish line before him. "But there’s only so much you can do after your Masters."

"So what did you study?" I ask.

"English Language and Linguistics, then Video Post-Production with a focus on visual effects."

"So you’re into like, filming and stuff," I say, firing a red shell at him and thus winning the race by a hair’s width.

Phil groans and lets the controller fall into his lap, then he looks at me. "Uh… Yeah, you could say that."

I nod, trying actively to look anywhere but his eyes. They’re kind of electric blue in the lights of the living room and it’s making my stomach flip a little and — I don’t like that.

We both jump and then laugh when my phone starts buzzing between our feet on the coffee table. Simultaneously, we lean forward.

"Oh, it’s yours. Sorry," Phil says, but he’s still glimpsing at the screen, "An alien is calling you."

That’s true. Well, it’s _not_ , but the screen does read _Incoming call from Mars_. But it’s just Marcia. It’s a funny thing between us. Somewhere between first and second grade, I started calling her Mars. That her last name is Jupiter only made it more hilarious.

I grab the phone, "Oh, shit. I promised her to stop by with pizza later."

"Your girlfriend?" Phil pulls his legs back off the table and crosses them under his body.

It takes a second for me to remember that I have to decline that. It’s still new. We _had_ been in a relationship for three years, after all. But I don’t have time to reply to him anyway, I have to answer the call.

"It’s eight pm and I’m starving," Marcia says in lieu of hello.

"Sorry, still at Phil’s," I explain.

"Oh," she makes, " _Oh_. So the flat is good, then?"

"Yes," I say, throwing a glance at Phil, grinning a little, "I think I’m moving in."

A smile from ear to ear stretches out on his face and I have to look away because… because I just don’t like these flips my intestines make, I really don’t like them.

"That’s great!" I can hear the undertone of _I told you so_ in her voice, but I choose to ignore it. "But. I mean. Are we still on for pizza or what?"

"Uh, sure. I was going to leave now anyway…"

"I didn’t mean to interrupt the possible blossoming of a friendship, Dan, I’m sorry," she giggles.

"It’s fine," I say, rolling my eyes, "Should I get the usual?"

"Duh," she makes, "Don’t forget the cheese crust."

"Aye-aye."

"Don’t get murdered on your way here."

"I’ll try my best," I say and then hang up, shoving the phone into my pocket, "Gotta go now. I’m on pizza duty."

Phil nods, switching the tv off. He walks me to the front door and watches me put my shoes back on before asking, "So… We’re gonna text about when you move your stuff in?"

"Yep," I say, "I might take another few days to find a good but cheap mattress though, but after that… I mean, I don’t have a lot of stuff in my dorm."

"If you need help just say the word," he smiles, "I’m literally always home anyway."

"We’re going to see each other a lot, then," I say, not really sure about why these words make my hands sweat.


	2. amazingphil

Over the last twelve months, Marcia and I have consumed a really shameful amount of Domino’s. On the bright side, however, we now have definitely perfected our order and every pizza night now equals about ten orgasms on the satisfaction scale. No exaggeration.

Marcia is sitting on her bed, cross-legged, as she practically inhales the last slice of our large Texan Barbecue pizza with cheese crust. Somehow, Marcia got really lucky with her roommate. She’s a girl called Hannah with really cool blue and green dyed hair, but she’s also extremely extroverted and always out and about so she’s basically only in the room to sleep.

We have music playing over the record player that takes up most of the space on Marcia’s desk. _Priorities_.

"So he’s nice, then?" she asks.

I nod, "Yeah. I mean, I guess. We ended up playing Mario Kart."

"Sounds like your type of guy." Something about this sentence rubs me the wrong way, but she doesn’t seem to notice. "I’m glad, though."

I nod again, still brooding over her words.

"When are you going to move in?"

I wipe my greasy hands on my jeans, "I need to get a mattress first. And new bedsheets, I guess."

"Huh. What about an actual bed?"

"The guy that lived there before Phil left his frame there and I can have it," I explain.

"How convenient," she muses.

I’m sitting on the floor in front of her bed, resting my head against the mattress. We’re silent for about half a song. A band called _Fly By Midnight_ is playing. I like them.

When I look at Marcia again, she’s still chewing but typing away on her phone at the same time. She rolls her eyes, "My mum."

I decide to fish my own phone out of my pocket. I made a habit out of putting it on Do Not Disturb, and I can’t help but feel a little excited. _Maybe I have a text from Phil…_ I shake my head. Why would he text me an hour after leaving his flat?

And I’m right. I don’t have a new text from Phil, just a bunch of Twitter and Tumblr notifications which all of them I ignore. Instead, I throw another glimpse at Marcia, see that she’s still busy texting her mother back, and tap my way into Instagram.

_Sounds like your type of guy._

The words are still ringing in my ears, and I don’t like it. I don’t have a type, and surely not a type of _guy_. But I find myself typing _Phil_ into the search bar anyways. I stop and think for a moment. I know he mentioned his last name at some point today, it was something starting with L.

As soon as I hit the L, Phil’s picture pops up beneath the search bar with his username _AmazingPhil_ written beside it. I can’t help the grin that fights its way on my face because even though I don’t know Phil that well, this username just fits perfectly.

I freeze, however, when I see the small blue badge next to his name. _What do you mean he’s verified?_

I click on his profile and then almost cough up all the pizza I just ate. Phil has more than a million followers! I skim over his bio.

> _I share my strange life with the internet! Subscribe/Follow to see what happens next!_

"Uh, Mars?" I ask, not tearing my eyes away from my phone, "Mar?"

"Hm?" she makes. She has migrated from sitting to lying down now.

I tap on Phil’s latest post. It’s from a few days ago and shows him standing before a stonewall, dressed in black jeans and a colourful jacket, holding Captain America’s shield in front of his chest, and is captioned: _Sorry Chris Evans ur fired_. It has an absurd amount of likes.

"What is it?" Marcia asks.

"Do you know, uhh, a… a YouTuber? Called AmazingPhil?" I try to sound casual but I’m pretty sure I’m failing drastically. The thing is, I spend a truly horrendous amount of my life on the internet, so I’m surprised _I_ haven’t heard about AmazingPhil. The only person I know that spends even more time online than me is Marcia.

"Yeah," she says, locking her phone and placing it on the mattress beside her, "He’s really funny, he makes these short, sketchy— _Wait_."

 _Finally_ , I manage to look away from Phil’s face on my screen.

"AmazingPhil. _Phil_. Oh my god, Dan." She sits up. "Is AmazingPhil _your_ Phil?"

"He’s not _my_ Phil, first of all." I feel heat rising up to my cheeks.

"Yeah, whatever, I meant as in flatmate," she says.

"I mean, I didn’t _know,_ " I say, turning my phone toward her, "But this _is_ Phil as in _flatmate Phil_."

"What. The. Actual. Fuck." She grabs my phone. " _No way_. You’re fucking with me."

"No, I stopped that about five months ago," I counter, "For real though. That’s him!"

"I can’t believe this," she laughs, shaking her head, "What the fuck. What the _fuck._ "

I take my phone back, scrolling back up to look at his follower count, "Why would he look for someone to share his flat with? If he has a million followers on _Instagram_ , how many does he have on YouTube, then?"

"I don’t know, you could check," she suggests, "I don’t watch him like, regularly. But I _have_ seen a couple of his videos."

I am tempted to click on the link in his bio, but I resist. _Maybe later_.

"He doesn’t need someone to share a flat with," I say again, still in disbelief, "Judging from _this_ " I wiggle my phone. "he can probably afford it on his own. Why… What if he’s some type of cannibal?"

Marcia snorts, "He’s not."

"But what if he is?"

"Dan," she says, "He is not. Maybe he’s just bored. Or lonely. Or YouTube’s payment is ratty."

My mind races about one hundred miles a minute. I just shrug at her, but my forehead is still in wrinkles. _Why wouldn’t he ask one of his_ friends _to move in with him? What if I had been a crazy fan of his and jumped him as soon as he opened the door? What did he mean when he said he had a breakdown after graduating from uni?_

I make a secret promise to myself to check his videos out later. Now I’m sure of what I thought about earlier: Phil is definitely different from a lot of people I have met.

 

***

 

Turns out finding a mattress that is relatively cheap and isn’t filled with what feels like rusty nails isn’t that easy. It takes another week. A week of me watching every single AmazingPhil video, at night with headphones on or secretly during lectures. But I don’t follow him on Instagram, or Twitter, for that matter. My Instagram is on private but I have quite a lot of followers on Twitter and Tumblr — weird people that enjoy a lot of shitposting, apparently.

But because I have Phil’s number saved to my phone, he’s recommended to me on Snapchat. I hesitate for a moment, but his username, _corgisandcacti_ , doesn’t suggest that it’s linked to his AmazingPhil persona.  
And apparently, I’m right about that because I don’t get any texts with _"Oh, so you’ve found my videos haha"_ or _"Have you subscribed yet??"_. I just get snaps from his various video game victories. I sent ones back, either of half-hearted lecture notes, the _Muse_ poster over my bed — I get an excited selfie reply for that one, Phil with a wide smile on his face and ridiculous bunny ears — or just the rain outside my dorm window.

 

This morning, I got a text from him that read: **Phil (9:32 am):** _There are spiderwebs forming on your bedframe :/_

Even though I was standing outside the study hall with approximately fifty other students waiting for their last exam of the term to start, I didn’t hesitate one second to text him back.

 **Dan (9:32 am):** _damn better make sure to get rid of them before i move my stuff over later because spiders are like the spawn of my own personal satan_

 **Phil (9:33 am):** _You’re afraid of spiders?_

 **Dan (9:33 am):** _they have eight legs and i have two explain how this is fair_

I just got a string of cry-laughing emojis back.

Now, Marcia and I are dragging a mattress up the third flight of stairs to my new flat. She’s at the top, pulling, I’m at the bottom, pushing with all my strength. Believe it or not, getting a queen-sized mattress up a narrow stairwell is hard work, even for two people. Especially when those two people have the combined strength of an earthworm.

Marcia groans, pulls, and falls on her butt with a _thump_. "Are we there yet?"

"One more flight of stairs," I say, panting.

"Ugh," she makes, "No. Time out, I need a break, my arms are dying."

I give the mattress one final push, then sink down next to her. She has her eyes closed, long lashes resting on her tanned cheeks. She’s beautiful, I can still see that. She’s always been out of my league, without question, but now I feel guilty for… well, not feeling anything. Not feeling the way I used to, not even _caring_ about the fact that her top is pulled down and I can see a little bit of her bra poking out, not even for the objectiveness of it all.

"What did you think about the exam this morning?" she asks out of nowhere.

I tear my eyes away from her cleavage and hold back a sigh. I really don’t want to think about _that_. "Good," I say.

Her eyes flutter open and she gives me this Look.

I shake my head, getting up, "I’m gonna go and ask Phil to help."

"Couldn’t you have done that like, three flights of stairs ago?" she asks after me, but I’m already standing in front of Phil’s door. I feel a little nervous — for literally no reason. Maybe it’s just the fact that now I _know_ he isn’t just someone. He’s someone with a hundred YouTube videos and almost two million subscribers to his name.

Phil opens the door soon after I’ve knocked. "Oh, hey."

"Hi," I say, "Uh, I have my mattress."

He cranes his neck, looking past me down the corridor where there is no mattress in sight.

"I kinda need help to drag it up here," I explain, wiping my hands that are for some reason sweaty _again_ on my jeans.

"Oh! Yeah, sure!" He smiles, leaving his front door wide open and following me down the stairs.

Marcia has got up by the time we arrive. She’s fixed her top as well as her long, curly hair.

"You’re the Martian!" Phil exclaims once he sees her.

She looks from him to me and back, "Yeah, I guess. It’s Marcia actually, but Mar or Mars is fine. Nice to meet you!"

For a moment, I’m irrationally terrified she might say something about his videos to Phil and I get the urge to jump toward her and press my hand over her mouth just for safety, but she doesn’t.

"I’m Phil," Phil says happily, "And if one of you ever calls me Philip I’m going to throw you out of the nearest window."

I snort at that.

"We’re all going by nicknames, then," Marcia states.

Phil looks at me.

"Daniel," I say, " _Obviously_."

"Right," he shakes his head, laughing. Then he eyes the mattress up and down, "Let’s get this bad boy to where it belongs, then."

 

You wouldn’t think it, but Phil is much stronger than he looks. So he ends up dragging the mattress to my new room almost completely alone, with Marcia and me towing after him, half-heartedly pushing it a little.

"These windows are a-mazing!" Marcia spins around her own axis in the living room, much like I did when I first came here. "Phil, forget Dan, _I’m_ going to move in. Just for the windows, no offence."

"The windows were what got me as well," Phil says, walking into the kitchen area, "Anyone want something to drink?"

"Do you have wine?" Marcia asks. I elbow her. "What?" she shrugs, "I need it after that exam."

"It’s like five pm!"

"I didn’t know you had an exam today," Phil says, opening a cupboard, "Was it good?"

I say "Yeah" at the same time as Marcia says "No". We look at each other, baffled. That’s the thing with Marcia, though, she’s always whiny about exams. She’s also that person that gets straight As.

"I have a bottle of Rosé somewhere, I think," Phil says, now looking through several cupboards and leaving them all open. It takes him a couple of minutes, but he does find a bottle of wine and three glasses.

We move to the lounge and Phil tells me to connect my phone to the bluetooth speaker and put some music on. I look at him for a moment longer than I probably need to.

It’s weird — when I first came here to look at the flat and Phil and I were alone, this place had almost started to feel like home already. Now, with Mars sitting to my left, I feel like an odd visitor.

Phil sways his head along to the rhythm of a song I put on before he asks, "So you’re bringing the rest of your stuff over… when? Just so I know when to throw you a proper move-in party."

"If you throw me a move-in party I will commit homicide," I warn him, "Not to be dramatic or anything."

"Noted," Phil grins.

"But yeah, tomorrow," I say, "Now that I’m practically free from the hellhole that is uni…"

"I will miss the snaps of notes," he muses, "I like your handwriting."

"You didn’t actually try and read any of them, did you?" I say, "Because I’m pretty sure most of it is utter bullshit."

"I could tell it was utter bullshit and I haven’t even studied law." His grin grows wider.

Marcia snorts a laugh, "Get rekt, Danny-boy."

I flip her the bird and take a long sip out of my glass.

"So you study law as well," Phil looks at Marcia who nods, "Do you like it?"

"It’s okay, I reckon," she says, shrugging.

"It doesn’t matter what you study," I tell her, "You’re good at everything."

Phil leans back into the cushions of the couch and, before Marcia can respond to me, says, "So why didn’t you two move in together?"

I snap my head toward him.

"That, uh, that wasn’t… It wasn’t supposed to sound mean or anything." _I swear he’s blushing!_ "I’m just wondering."

"I’m actually leaving in a couple of weeks," Marcia says, clearly oblivious to Phil’s flushed cheeks, "I’ll be in the states for next semester. Well, and for the summer."

"Because she’s a genius," I chime in.

"Wow." Phil looks actually impressed. I mean, I guess that’s fair, _I’m_ impressed as well. But I’m also just used to it, to Marcia being the one out of the two of us that has her life in order. It has always been like that, even though our lives are basically one and the same. We have lived in houses next to one another, with bedroom windows facing each other, for our whole childhood. Went from best friends to lovers to best friends again. We experienced every First Time, of whatever kind, together, at the same time. Our parents are basically a copy-and-paste from each other — emotional-absent mum and high-expectations dad. And yet here I am, probably failing each and every single one of my classes while she’s going to America for half a year.

Phil snaps his fingers in front of my face, "You still here?"

I snap out of my trance, "Sorry. Just thinking. I like the wine."

"My brother brought it over recently," Phil says, "I’ve never really been one for wine and I can’t— I don’t drink alcohol too often. But I think I like this one, too!"

 

It’s not really that easy for me to get drunk, believe it or not — I’m 6"3 after all. I need a bit more than a couple glasses of wine to get me properly hammered. But it’s enough to make my head feel a little floaty and for my limbs to relax.

We play one Play Station game after the other. First all three of us but it eventually ends with Marcia just sitting in her spot on the couch, laughing at mine and Phil’s banter as we try to win Fortnite.

"Quick, pass me some bandag— Phil! Bandages! I— Fuck!" I shriek as someone in the distance shoots a bullet straight into my face. "I’m dead!"

"No, you’re not dead," Phil says, his character nervously running around in a circle in the ruin we’ve been hiding in together.

"Phil, my corpse is _literally_ being beamed up and it says I’ve been eliminated. I think I couldn’t be any more dead." I let the controller fall into my lap and focus my attention on his character. I shouldn’t have done that, it would have spared me the misery I’m witnessing now. "Oh my god, what the fuck are you doing?!"

Phil makes a panicked sound somewhere low in his throat. There are shots being fired all around him.

"Phil, do something! Do _something_! Don’t just stand there and— PHIL! PHI-IL!"

Marcia is on the floor laughing by the time Phil’s character goes up in flames.

I bump my shoulder against Phil’s, eyes still on the screen, "What happened? Where was your instinct to fight?"

"I was like a deer in headlights!" He ducks his head in-between his shoulders, but I can hear the grin in his voice.

"If _I_ just got shot in the fucking face, you have to do something! You can’t just stick your head out and be like" I let my voice raise two octaves, "Oh, what a lovely day in the fields. Look, the sun is shining. I wonder if there’s anybody— _KABOOM_."

"Stop!" Marcia pants, wiping her eyes, "I’m literally crying. Stop."

I tear my eyes away from the screen only to find Phil giggling into his hands. And I don’t know if it’s the wine or the high of the fun I just had, but I don’t deny myself this warm, fuzzy feeling in my chest when his eyes meet mine.

"I’m sorry!" he says, _still_ grinning, his tongue poking out between his teeth.

I roll my eyes and lean back into the cushions, "I cannot believe this."

"We made a good team, though," he retorts.

"We both _died_ ," I say.

"Yeah. _Together._ As a _team_."

My head falls into my hands. It feels too hazy with laughter, excitement and… something like fondness to hold upright.

"Please invite me over the next time you decide to play… _anything_ , to be honest," Marcia says from her spot on the floor, "It’s hilarious. I would pay for this."

Phil giggles again and there is a whole whirlwind in my chest. _Whatever was in this wine, it was stronger than I expected._

 

Marcia and I leave around nine, still buzzing with laughter and stuffed with food from Phil’s rather massive candy stock. She has my denim jacket hanging around her shoulders, way too big on her, but she can pull it off. It’s June already and the night is mild.

"I should start something like a tv show," she says into the comfortable silence between us.

"Huh?"

"Like, finding the perfect flatmate for someone," she turns her head to look up to me.

I snort, "You literally just pointed at the first flat ad you saw on that bulletin board and it happened to be Phil."

"You mean it happened to be a famous YouTuber who is funny and has a lot of interests in common with you."

"I’m glad you didn’t say anything about the YouTube thing," I say.

"Did you check his videos out?" Her eyes are still on me and somehow, for the first time ever, it makes me feel a bit uneasy.

"I mean, yeah. One or two of his latest," I say, "Not _all_ of them, though."

"Right." _Can she please look away now?_ "But. Are you just going to pretend you don’t know?"

"No," I say, "I mean, yes. I don’t know. But I think it’s only fair to let _him_ tell me?" She nods. "I don’t want him to think I’m like, a crazy fan."

"I think he figured you’re not."

"Still."

We’re silent again, but it’s the awkward type now and I’m not entirely sure why. Suddenly, something about her wearing my jacket feels weird. Phil’s question _"Why don’t you two move in together?"_ is still ringing in my ears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> do yourself a favour and check out the band fly by midnight :)


	3. moving in

I wake up to _My Humps_ by _The Black Eyed Peas_ pounding into my ear. It’s the worst ringtone — especially when it’s your mum calling. I blink a couple of times, realise the bed on the other side of the room is empty, and let my head fall back onto the pillow. _Maybe I can just ignore her_.

But the thing is, I really _can’t_. My family doesn’t exactly have a tight emotional bond that holds us all together, which means my mum is only ever calling me when there is something important.

I slide my finger across the screen, "Hey, Mum."

"Daniel," she says, then stops sharp, "Are you still in bed?"

"Uh, no." It sounds suspiciously like a question. _I don’t even know what time it is._

"Don’t you have your last exam today?" she asks sternly.

"That was yesterday," I sit up, wiping a hand all over my face as if to brush the sleepiness away, "What’s up?"

"Look," _Oh no_ , she’s put on her business voice. "I know you said you wanted to do this alone, but I found this website for people who look for a flatmate. It’s very reputable. I can—"

I suppress a groan from _very_ deep within. "Mum," I cut her off, "Mum, I found a flat." _I guess I should have told her_.

I can picture her mouth opening and closing without making a sound, kind of like a fish.

"I’m actually moving in today."

"Oh," she makes, "Oh, that… That is great, Dan."

"Yeah."

I know she’s nodding, all business still. The business of getting and _keeping_ Child Number 1 out of the house. "And did you find another job? Or how are you planning to pay the rent? I mean, we could help you out, your dad and I, obviously, for the first couple of months, I—"

"I still have money left from my job at Focus," I say, "Since Mar and I never ended up going on that trip to Paris."

It’s a sour topic, the breakup. Not only for me but for my mum, too. I know all her — and Dad’s, to be honest — hopes in me were based on me staying with Marcia forever. Because she’s this genius human being and apparently they thought it would rub off on me — eventually. I don’t know how, in all three years of our relationship, they couldn’t see that that wasn’t going to happen.

"Right," she clears her throat, "How is Marcia?"

"She great, Mum."

"Are you still—"

I let a sigh out of my nose, hoping she didn’t hear it. "Friends," I say, "Yeah. Still friends. Nothing more."

"I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to push."

"You didn’t, it’s fine." I’m almost annoyed now. Actually no, I’m _definitely_ slightly annoyed already. "It’s just. It’s over, Mum. I told you. It’s been four months, we’re friends, there’s nothing going to happen again."

"You should never say never, Daniel." And that’s about the dreamiest thing my mum has ever said. I roll my eyes, glad she isn’t insisting on video calls these days. "Anyway," she continues, "Try to find another job, okay?"

"Of course." If she can make this sound all business, so can I. Maybe I do have a little bit of a lawyer in me, after all. "There is a coffee shop just outside mine and Phil’s apartment, actually."

"Phil," she repeats.

"Yeah, my, uh, flatmate now, I guess."

"Right. Good," she says, "Do you need me to look over the flat contract for you, or—"

"Mum, I’m literally studying law, I’m fine with contracts." It hangs in the air, and I know she’s thinking the same thing I am. I might be studying law, yes, but I’m certainly not very good at it.

It’s silent for a good minute, and I’m almost under the impression she hung up on me, but then she says, the tone completely changed, "So, I assume you’re staying in Manchester for your birthday?"

"Oh," I make, a little thrown off by the sudden change of topic, "Yeah, I guess. It’s Marcia’s last day before she flies off then, too."

"Just," Mum’s voice gets a little quieter, maybe even a tiny bit soft, "Make sure to come down here sometime soon, right? Your grandma misses you."

I nod, "I will."

"Your cake and presents will await you anytime."

A smile tugs on the corners of my mouth, "I get presents?"

"Of course, Daniel. That’s the social etiquette for birthdays, after all."

I fall back into my pillows, actually smiling now. "Bye, Mum. I’ll call you soon."

 

***

 

Maybe it’s a little worrying that all my possessions fit into one tiny suitcase and a backpack. Maybe it’s not. Maybe it’s for the better, regarding I have to carry all of it across town and up fourteen floors in the end.

Apparently, I woke Phil up with my knocking on his — no, _our_ — door, because he looks like he’s just fallen out of bed. His black fringe is pushed back, he has glasses on, and he’s wearing a pair of truly hideous pyjama bottoms.

"What _the fuck_ are those?" I ask, eyeing his legs up and down. The yellow of his trousers and all the different emojis printed on it are kind of sickening, to be honest.

"My emoji pyjamas," he yawns, stepping back and pressing his back against the wall to let me shimmy past him with my suitcase.

"Mate, what the hell." I watch him close the door. "I don’t know what’s more alarming, the fact that you own" I make a grimace. " _emoji_ pyjamas or that you’re wearing pyjamas at three pm in the first place."

"I was up late last night after you left," he says, "Wine doesn’t let me sleep well."

"Oh."

"So. Are that all your things?" He looks at the suitcase.

"Yup."

"That’s like, a _lot_ , Dan. Dunno if we can fit that all in this crammed space."

"Ha ha, very funny. I’m a minimalist."

"Sure you are," he says, the least bit convinced. Then he steps past me, and I can actually smell the scent of his — _I don’t know_ , bodywash? Shampoo? Aftershave? Cologne? _Anyway_ , he definitely doesn’t have a right to smell this good just after waking up. Phil opens the door to my room.

"Fuck. I need to go and get bedsheets, I completely forgot," I say as soon as I see the bare mattress in the frame.

"That’s okay, we don’t have groceries either," Phil shrugs, "Kill two birds with one stone."

 

We don’t leave the house for another two hours. Phil says he has to have coffee first and I agree, I haven’t been up for _too_ long either, at least.

"Just for the record, it tastes like piss," I say, chugging the last bit of _instant_ coffee.

"How do you know what piss tastes like?" Phil grins.

"Shut up." I place my mug in the sink. "Who in the world would voluntarily drink _instant_?"

"Me!" Phil stretches his arm into the air for emphasis. "My mum used to give it to me when I was like eight so I would get up in the mornings."

"Look, and suddenly I don’t question why you are so strange anymore."

The grin on his face freezes. It’s not obvious and I don’t know why I notice. _I can’t have his face memorised that well just yet, can I?_

"In a good way," I add hastily, "The good kind of strange. Obviously. Normal is boring."

"Normalness leads to sadness," Phil says, and it sounds like he’s told himself dozens of times before; like something he’s said so often he learned it by heart. Hearing it somehow feels strange and intimate, and way too soon for my ears.

"I like the sound of that." My mouth feels dry. _Fucking instant._

 

Phil finally changes into more acceptable clothes after that. Black jeans and a red and white striped t-shirt. The stripes make his chest look even broader and _fuck, I don’t even know why I’m noticing this._

We get the bedsheets first, as they are, quote-unquote, "higher priority so you get your beauty sleep, Dan", and the groceries right after. It turns out that grocery shopping with Phil takes way more time than my usual quick run to Waitrose.

He spends hours deciding between two different kinds of cereal, finally settling for the more colourful one, while I have already packed three cartons of Crunchy Nut into our trolley for me.

But it’s also more fun with Phil. I quickly learn that he’s a rambler, a talker, and I’m not complaining. Marcia and I are more the thinking type and there’s often just silence between us, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Normally, our silences are all I wish for on most days.

But I do really like this. Hearing — no, _listening_ — to Phil’s voice as he talks about his love for pancakes, or that he is lactose intolerant but "some things are worth the tummy ache, except cheese because I hate cheese", and I don’t even know but all of this feels so familiar already, and now I kind of _am_ thankful it was his ad Marcia pointed at last week.

 

***

 

It’s already dark outside when we get back to our flat, Phil carrying two massive bags filled with groceries and I’m heaving the new bedsheets up the stairs.

"What did you say again," I ask, "Why does the lift not work all the way up?"

Phil somehow opens the door without dropping absolutely everything. "I dunno. Something with like, relays?"

"Right," I say, absolutely no idea what that means.

Phil offers to make some dinner and leave me to unpack my stuff and get my bedsheets on and to be honest, it’s what I should do. Probably. If I wasn’t so extremely lazy, for god’s sake.

But I manage. I put the bedsheets on and surprisingly, it doesn’t completely physically drain me — I do break out in a sweat, though, not gonna lie — and I open my suitcase and unpack a few things.

There is a narrow shelf on the other side of the door that I hadn’t noticed before, so that’s where my textbooks go. I realise soon that I need to get a dresser, or a clothing rack, if I don’t want to _actually_ live out of a suitcase. And a desk.

The smell of spices wavers into the room and I decide that furniture is a problem future Dan will have to deal with.

 

Phil made a vegetable stir-fry with rice and peanut sauce and I don’t know why, but I wouldn’t have thought of him as a good cook. Clearly, I don’t know him that well yet. What I do learn about him, however, is that he has a strange obsession with _Buffy The Vampire Slayer._ I have watched it before, but now, with Phil’s commentary — _told you, he’s a talker_ — it’s kind of… better.

I have already finished my food by the time the first episode ends, and now Phil is quiet during the next one's intro. I place my plate on the coffee table between our stretched out feet — which I admit is kinda gross — and grab my phone instead.

I have a few notifications from Twitter and a couple of texts from Marcia. I open Twitter and steal a glance at Phil while it’s loading. He has his phone in hand as well now, although he’s not typing. His eyes are wandering and he taps the screen occasionally.

I mean. I can’t resist.

I tap into the search bar and type Phil’s name in, just like I did over a week ago on Instagram. I have watched all his videos, but to check out his Twitter never came to my mind until now. Which is kind of weird, since I spend basically all my time online either on Twitter or Tumblr.

His profile pops up. He has the same bio as on Instagram, and his profile picture and header don’t match — like, they don’t match _at all_. I look at his last tweet.

 

@AmazingPhil Just accidentally said ‘incest’ while trying to say ‘I don’t mind insects’ so that’s how my day is going

 

I can’t hold back the snort at this. It sounds like such a Phil thing, I don’t even know. My stomach drops at this. Just a little bit. _I shouldn’t be thinking this, I don’t know him like that yet._

I swipe and somehow land in his recently liked posts. I pull my finger down over the screen to refresh the page and two new liked posts pop up. It’s just pictures showing up in here, of him, some edited, some drawn. One tweet says: _change your header you coward it’s hurting my eyes_ and has a beautiful digital drawing attached to it that would definitely match with his profile picture.

Without too much thinking I scroll back up to the top and press the follow button next to Phil’s name. _It’s not a big deal, is it?_ He probably won’t even notice, he has tons of people following him every day.

But his phone buzzes and he taps and swipes and then looks up.

I’m already there to meet his gaze and it’s just — it’s so weird. Is it invasive? I don’t even know. Frankly, I have no idea what I’m doing and why I’m doing it. I could have just asked him about his videos, told him I have seen _some_. But no, I have to do it the weird, internet-stalker kind of way.

"Dani snot on fire," Phil says, "Interesting choice of a username."

We hold eye contact for three solid seconds, neither of us batting an eye. Then I reach behind myself and throw a cushion directly at his face.

"Oi!" He ducks.

"Dani snot on fire," I repeat, snorting.

"It was a joke," he’s laughing now.

"Right," I roll my eyes, grinning so heart, _for whatever reason_ , that it hurts my cheeks, "And what’s so amazing about you, anyway, huh."

"Oi," he makes again, then he looks down on his screen again and — stops. He just stops, his face falls, and he looks back up. "Dan."

"Huh?" I have already locked my phone, just holding it in my lap.

"You have like, ten thousand followers," he says.

"Oh," I make, "Yeah, I know."

"Why — I mean… No. _Why_ do you have so many followers?"

"Dude, you do realise you have like, two million, right?"

He raises his eyebrows at the word _dude_ but doesn’t say anything.

I shrug, "I mean, I don’t know. It’s just a bunch of nerds that enjoy me emo-tweeting at like, three in the morning."

Phil’s fingers work over his phone’s screen again, and I feel kind of squirmy in my seat next to him on the sofa. Then he huffs through his nose and clears his throat, kind of dramatically, "At Dani snot on fire"

I. Glare.

He grins wider, then he reads on, in exactly that monotone voice I had in mind when I wrote this tweet, "What do our society and my lips have in common they're both split haha but really humanity has to come together and i need chapstick." He looks back up then, and his eyes drop to my lips, and my brain knows it’s because of the tweet, but my body doesn’t, which is why my blood starts _boiling._

This happens too often. It’s not just Phil. _God, no_ , it’s definitely not just him. It’s the Domino’s guy that delivers a pizza to my room at least once a week, it’s the cashier dude at Tesco — hell, it’s even my professor sometimes!

And I don’t know what it means. This tingling feeling beneath my skin, like my insides are suddenly too big for my skin, this churning in my guts, these racing thoughts that seem to be in a language I cannot understand.

All I know is that my mind wanders back to Marcia then. Immediately. Like she’s some sort of weird coping mechanism. I don’t wish for us to be back together, but I do miss the safety of it. Our relationship was like a room, and whenever I felt my head spinning from spending too much time on Antoni Porowski’s Instagram profile, I could just lock the door and everything would be fine. She would be there, and she would be real, and she would be safe.

"You do need chapstick, mate," Phil says, pulling me out of my spiraling thoughts.

I don’t have to deal with this tonight. I don’t have to deal with this _ever_. I don’t even know what _This_ exactly is. It’s probably nothing.

My phone buzzes. _@AmazingPhil followed you back!_ I open the app back up.

"So, uh," Phil adjusts his position, pulling his legs up to his chest. I think it’s a thing he does unconsciously, making himself smaller. "You _know_."

"What? About the, uhm, YouTube thing?" I ask as if I didn’t _exactly_ know what he’s talking about, "I mean, yeah. I guess I do. You could have warned me, mate. You’re like, properly famous, aren’t you?"

"Nah," he makes, "S’not… It’s not a big deal. I just — Did you know, like… from the beginning?"

"I, uh, I didn’t," I say, but then I realise I don’t really want to tell him that I typed his name into Instagram right after we met for the first time. I bite down on my bottom lip, hard.

Thankfully, Phil doesn’t question it any farther. "But you’re… cool with it?"

"Of course," I say, "Why wouldn’t I?"

"I don’t know."

"It’s just. You don’t really _need_ a flatmate, do you?" I pull my legs up as well. And it kind of helps, feeling smaller. "Like, you can afford the rent on your own. Not that I’m trying to dip or anything, I’m just wondering."

He scrunches his nose, "I don’t really like talking about money. I mean, you’re right, I can afford it on my own, I have lived here for two months now after all. But that’s not what this — what YouTube is about for me. It’s not about money, I just got lucky in that department."

I let that sit for a moment. With giving him a cheeky follow on Twitter I definitely didn’t mean to start such a conversation, but at the same time I can’t argue that it feels nice.

"I started doing videos after I graduated high school, just for fun, and that’s what it still is for me. It’s fun. I just earn money now, too."

I still don’t get why he needs someone to share his flat with, but that quickly scoots to the back of my mind. It unleashes something inside of me, hearing him talk about it like that. It’s something I feel somewhere deep inside me, this wish to get exactly where he is. To do something with my life that gets me somewhere but doesn’t feel like work.

Law definitely isn’t that something.

"I just don’t like being alone."


	4. birthday

Over the next two days, Phil and I already fall into something like a routine. We order food for all three meals of the day — yes, including breakfast, turns out the Starbucks comes into use sooner than I thought it would — and Phil tells me, half ashamed, that the cooking he did the other night was actually the first time he used the kitchen for more than just heating up leftovers from take away meals.

I acquire a dresser from a street sale I visit with Marcia, and Phil helps to build it back together after I carried every individual piece of wood up to our flat. Apparently, we’re both absolute dorks with two left hands each and I now have three massive bruises on my right shin, but we still manage to get a good laugh out of it.

We play video games in the evenings, and stay up too late, and sleep in too much, and drink a lot of Red Bull even though it’s disgusting, but it feels good. I feel at ease, like this is home now. Because it is.

 

My birthday comes faster than I would have liked it to. Twenty-one is a scary number. It sounds no more like an excuse not to have your shit together yet.

It’s the evening before now, June 10th. Phil and I are on the sofa with an episode of _Sherlock_ playing, but neither of us is paying attention. I’m on my phone, texting Marcia because she’s having a little breakdown over the fact that she’ll fly to America all by herself in just two days, and Phil is on his laptop, typing away.

I don’t ask him if he’s scripting a new video, but I reckon he is, and I feel a little bit of excitement at that. His videos are really good, after all. Very creative and funny, and he pays attention to so many details.

I shake my head and stop watching him like the maniac I am. It’s almost ten pm. _That’s not too early for some emo tweeting, is it?_

 

@danisnotonfire tomorrow is the annual day of forced reflection on the progress and satisfaction of my life as i move one step closer to death but at least there’s gonna be cake

 

Phil and I both jump at the sound his phone makes on the coffee table. I laugh it off sheepishly and lean back into the cushions, while he shuts his laptop and reaches out for it curiously.

I refresh Twitter.

"It’s your birthday tomorrow?"

I look up. Phil is already there, his blue eyes waiting for mine to meet them.  
It takes a moment for my brain to catch up. "I, uh, how—" I raise my eyebrows, "D’you have my post notifications on, mate?"

It’s almost like I can see the blush creeping up his cheeks in slow motion. And… it’s endearing. He looks adorable with a flushed face.

 _Shit._ I mean, _what?_

I bite down on my bottom lip, as if to stop myself from speaking these dense thoughts out loud. Because that is what they are: dense, foolish, dumb. They don’t mean anything. And even _if_ they did, I wouldn’t know what.

"I mean." Phil’s voice cracks a little bit, "I do like your emo tweets. They’re relatable."

"Are they?" I look at his bright green York hoodie, still biting my lip.

"This may be the last evidence" he points at his black fringe, "but I did indeed have an emo phase."

"Right," I shrug, "Look, I’m judging you, but I’m not shaming."

"For turning on my flatmate’s post notifications?"

"Yeah," I say, "You may like my tweets now but will you still like them when they appear on your phone screen randomly at like, four am when all you wanna do is get a good night’s rest?"

"I’m a night owl anyway." The way he’s _still_ holding eye contact is making my cheeks hot now as well.

I tear my gaze away, looking back down on my phone. I have a few sarcastic and ironic replies to my tweet — just how I like them. "But yeah. My birthday is tomorrow."

"Twenty-one, eh?"

"Uh huh," I nod.

"That’s so _young_."

I snort, "I mean. You’re like, what? Twenty three?"

He flinches, "Twenty five."

"No way."

"Yes way."

"It’s the fringe," I decide, "Never get rid of it. It isn’t only the last resemblance of your emo phase, it’s also the last resemblance of your youth."

He throws a cushion at my face. I laugh.

"I mean, it’s part of the channel branding anyway, so I can’t exactly get rid of it," he says then.

"Huh," I make, "Do you _want_ to get rid of it? Quiff it up?"

"Not really, to be honest."

"Well, then don’t."

He drums his fingers over his closed MacBook and for a minute, we’re both just listening to Benedict Cumberbatch’s voice. "What kind of cake do you like best?"

"What?" I mean, I _understood_ , the question was just unexpected.

"Don’t think you can escape proper birthday celebrations by just not telling me it’s your birthday at all, Howell," Phil grins, "Birthdays are kind of like my thing. Well, cake is my thing."

I just look at him then, at the genuine expression on his face. "I like chocolate best, I guess. Or red velvet."

"A chocolate-red-velvet cake," he nods, "Noted. Please don’t be up before noon tomorrow."

"That won’t be a problem, mate."

 

***

 

Phil is kind of like the king of birthdays, I come to realise. After the obligatory Birthday Phone Calls with my parents, my brother, and my grandma in the morning, I wander out of my room at noon, only to find the lounge decorated in colourful banners and even a balloon hanging from the ceiling.

Phil is rummaging around in the kitchen, plates and bowls smashing against each other. "No!" he whines, "You’re up too early, go back to bed!"

"Good morning to you too." I sit down at the breakfast bar, rubbing my eyes. My vision is still a little blurry from sleep even though I’ve been on the phone with my grandma for well over an hour. It may be possible that I fell asleep somewhere between her wishing me all the best and telling me about her latest Sudoku adventure.

The next thing I know is something wet splattering against my closed eyelids.

I open them to find a grinning Phil with freshly washed hands still level with my face. "Happy birthday!"

I try not to notice how his plain blue shirt is complementing his eyes, I really do. But I can’t help it. And I can’t help noticing that, in contrast with an actual blue thing, they are not just blue. There’s also a good amount of light green in there and… yellow almost.

"Thanks," I choke out and force my attention away from his face, "Oh god, you’re not _actually_ baking me a cake, are you?"

He dries his hands on a dishtowel and huffs, "No. Sorry, mate, but that would not end well. I can cook well enough but baking? Not a good idea." He hangs the towel back. "But don’t worry, there _will_ be cake."

I narrow my eyes at the mess he made in the kitchen then.

"Pancakes!" he exclaims excitedly, "I ran to Tesco this morning and got caramel and chocolate syrup! And I just made the batter, so I can finish them if you wanna have a shower."

And I just. First of all, I'm _literally_ at a loss for words, completely speechless. Second of all, there’s a warmth spreading out in my chest that knocks the air out of my lungs so even _if_ I had any words in mind, I wouldn’t be able to speak them out loud.

Phil blushes then and _no, Dan, this is not the time to notice the faint dusting of freckles on his cheeks!_

My phone makes a _bing!_ noise and _thank god_ , because I finally snap out of whatever trance I was in. "Sounds… Sounds good," I clear my throat, more forcefully than needed, "I mean. Either you are secretly a Birthday Fairy or you’re really trying to impress me here, mate."

It’s not just a blush on Phil’s cheeks now, it’s two full-on bright red circles there. And he seems to notice, because he drops his gaze. "I just really like pancakes."

 

***

 

I’m not really surprised when Marcia comes over later that day, her hair a curly mess and the biggest smile on her face. I am surprised however, by the mint green box she’s carrying.

"Your cake order has arrived!" she announces as she steps in for a hug. She smells of vanilla and coconut, maybe a little heavy in combination with the summer heat but so familiar. "Happy birthday, Danny-boy." She presses a kiss to my cheek. "You’re old now."

I step back. "I’m literally only two months older than you."

"Still."

 

Apparently, Phil found and DMed Marcia on Instagram last night and asked her to get the best chocolate cake she could find. And she did a pretty damn good job because now, almost all of it is gone and I have eaten most of it.

I’m sat on the floor, my back leaned against an armchair, while Marcia and Phil share the sofa. They’re both bent over Phil’s laptop, grinning. A moment later, my phone buzzes on the coffee table.

 

@AmazingPhil Happy birthday @danisnotonfire!! 🎈🥳 you’ve got chocolate on your nose

 

Twitter kind of goes wild after that and I have to actually switch my phone off in order to focus on the game we’re playing. I think Phil has done the same.

After two rounds of Mario Party, Marcia half-heartedly suggests we could leave the flat and go out to a bar but I decide, since it’s _my_ birthday, that all I want to do is stay in and play stupid video games. And not think about the fact that I won’t see her in a while after today.

To be fair, after her over-text freakout yesterday, she seems pretty calm now. Well, calm for someone who just got completely annihilated in a mini-game. She stretches her foot out and kicks it against my shoulder. "I hate you!"

Phil giggles.

"Actually," she turns her head toward him, "I hate you _both_."

"You’re just shit at video games," I say. It’s a lie and all three of us know that. Marcia is good at gaming, Phil and I just seem to take it to the next level.

 

She leaves too early, it’s not even nine, and I almost cry. I have done my best for the past days — well, the past month, to be honest — to suppress the nagging feeling in my stomach. She’s going to leave and I can’t do anything against that. I don’t _want_ to do anything against that — I couldn’t be any more proud.

It’s just that even after the romantic part of our relationship ended, I still hate being without her. The time we spent apart right after our breakup was the worst ever and I really don’t want to go through that again. Even if it was my own fault.

"Stop that," she mumbles against my shoulder as we hug, "I can hear you sniffing."

I’m really thankful Phil stayed in the lounge. I bury my face in her curls. "I’ll miss you, you know."

"I’ll miss you too, you spoon."

I let go of her, because I _have_ to. If I don’t do it now, I won’t do it _ever_ — which reminds me even more of our breakup. "You better have a fucking good time over there."

"I will." Her eyes blink a couple times too fast, and then she looks up at me with the most sincere expression in them. "Try to be okay."

"I am okay."

She reaches a hand out and squeezes my shoulder as if to say _You know what I mean_.

And suddenly, there are a million things I want to say. Things I should have said months ago. Things that lurk in the dark corners of my mind. I feel like I have to explain, but I don’t know _what_ there is to explain and _how_ to do it.

"I know." Her voice is so gentle, for others it must not sound like her at all. "I’ll call you, alright?"

My brain is in free fall for a second longer, but then it slots back into place and I hug her once more.

 

***

 

"It must really suck," Phil says between two episodes of _Buffy_. I suddenly was too tired and just let him choose what to watch.

"Hm?" I look up from my wine glass. It’s filled with Ribena.

"Marcia leaving." Phil’s voice is so much deeper, I notice, when it’s just the two of us. "It must be tough."

"Yeah, I’ll miss her," I agree, "She’s kind of like… the best. I don’t even know."

"I’ve never done long distance," Phil says, "But I never understood couples that broke up _just_ because of that either. Like, I get it if you just grow apart during your time away from each other, but toss it all _beforehand_?"

I nod, half agreeing to the latter. I’m too tired to argue. Then there’s another click in my brain — there have been rather a lot of those today, maybe that’s why I feel so exhausted — and I say, "We’re not… Uh, we’re not dating, though."

Phil’s head snaps away from the tv then and he looks at me. "What?"

"Mars and I," I say, because _fuck, I never clarified that, did I?_ "We’re not dating. Not anymore."

"Oh," Phil’s mouth forms a perfectly surprised O but I swear I can see his eyes lighting up behind the glasses he put on an hour ago. _But I’m not looking at his eyes right now._ "I thought you were!"

"We broke up like, four months ago," I say.

He looks at me for the better part of a minute with this kind of intense pensive expression overlaying his features. Then he pushes himself up off the couch and disappears in the direction of the kitchen.

It takes a couple of minutes before he returns, another glass and a bottle of Malibu in hand. He drops back down on the couch. Without a word, he reaches for my glass and dumps a good amount of Malibu into the Ribena mix.

"Hey!" I protest although it’s only half-heartedly.

Phil fixes himself the same drink like me, then he leans back. "Let’s play 21 Questions."

"What?"

"The party game?" he says, raising his eyebrows. I only now realise that their colour doesn’t match his hair. "We ask each other—"

"Yeah, I know what 21 Questions is," I say, "Don’t give me war flashbacks to high school."

He laughs.

"Why, though?" I ask but I’m already reaching for my glass. "I mean, sure. But what made you think of it?"

"We’re living together," he shrugs, "Reckon we should get to know each other."

"We do know each other," I say but ultimately realise we actually don’t. It’s overwhelming to think about for me, the fact that I might have only scratched the surface of what is Phil Lester. It’s slightly terrifying. But why?

Maybe because I already feel so at peace, every day, even if I have only been living here for a little over a week, waking up to Phil making disgusting instant coffee and ordering take away with him for two-hour long meals and playing PlayStation.

Maybe because there’s warmth spreading in my chest every time our eyes meet for longer than a couple of seconds, and if I really think about it, I’m scared of what will happen next.

 _Nothing is going to happen next._ I bite down on my lip, hard. I can’t let myself think these things. Not right now and certainly not in front of someone else.

"Really?" Phil asks, "Because I have no idea what your middle name is."

I think my lip is starting to bleed underneath my teeth. I stop biting it and suck it into my mouth for a moment, trying to ignore his eyes on me. "Is that your first question?"

"Yeah."

"James," I say, taking a sip from my drink.

"Oi!" Phil makes, "You’re only supposed to drink if you want to skip a question!"

"What kinds of things do you wanna ask me, mate?" I ask and grin at the caught expression on his face. "Just kidding. But like, it’s still my birthday, right? Let’s just… drink whenever."

"Right," he clears his throat and takes a sip himself, flinching.

Which brings me to _my_ first question. "You said you don’t really drink."

"Yeah."

"Which is obviously fine," I add, "But like." I nod toward the bottle of Malibu, "You have quite a lot of booze around for someone who doesn’t like alcohol."

"I never said I didn’t like it."

"Okay, so why don’t you drink, then?" I ask, and then I wave my hand for emphasis, "I mean, _normally_. Because you’re drinking right now. Ugh. You get what I’m saying, right?"

"Yeah," he giggles, his tongue poking out between his teeth. He leans back into the sofa, an arm laying nonchalantly on the backrest. It doesn’t quite reach me but his hand is kind of close to my shoulder.

"So?"

His giggle dies down, "I, uh… I take meds and they don’t mix well with alcohol. Nothing bad, just doesn’t let me sleep that well."

"Oh," I make, nodding slowly. I decide to take another long sip, chasing the beginnings of the floaty feeling in my head.

"Anxiety stuff," he blurts suddenly, "The meds. To help me deal with anxiety."

"Oh."

"Sorry, I—" He takes another sip, "I didn’t mean for this to get so deep, and it’s not. It’s nothing really, I’m just a panicky person."

"Is that why you don’t like being alone?" I have already forgotten about the rules of the game. I guess it was his turn to ask a question now, but I don’t really care.

He nods. "I mean, it sounds worse than it actually is, probably. And I’m fine with the meds."

I have a feeling there is more to this whole story but I’m not trying to push, so I row back into the safety of this whole game thing. "Alright," my head is definitely feeling floaty, so I let it drop against the backrest, nudging his hand with my forehead. _Malibu is definitely making me weird._ "Go on then, it’s your turn to ask something."

Phil’s eyes look a little heavier already and they’re definitely darker in just the light coming from the tv. No more different shades of blue, green, and yellow for me to discover. "Why did you and Mar break up?"

I guess I should have known this was coming. Absolutely _everyone_ in my life has asked me this question already. And it’s fair, three-year relationships don’t go to waste for nothing.

"You don’t have to answer," Phil says hastily, "Sorry. It’s probably—"

"It’s fine," I say.

 _Is it, though?_ I mean, yes, I’m fine with the breakup, I was the one who initiated it after all, and Marcia and I are friends, but I guess I never really talked about it until now. Not even with Marcia. I still feel guilty looking back; I owe her so many explanations, but I can’t even explain it to myself.

Phil empties his glass in one long draft. I watch his Adam’s apple bob up and down.

"We broke up because," I sigh, "Because. Well. Because I can be a right asshole sometimes."

Phil laughs at that. It’s a breathy sound and he probably didn’t mean for it to escape his mouth. "Yeah, you look exactly like the asshole type to me."

"It’s…" It’s so much more complicated. I wish I could put it into words. I shake my head, getting a little dizzy from the movement. "I’m just… Trust me. I’m one mess of a person and sometimes, my own chaos gets too much for me, and I just… I shut down and become this weird — look, I don’t know — demon version of myself."

Phil raises his eyebrows.

"And she deserves better than that," I say, "I was just holding her back with my ups and downs. She put up with me through it all because like I said, she’s the best, but being in this kind of a committed relationship with me was only holding her back."

"And now you’re… friends? Just like that?"

My throat is feeling strangely sore and tight, so I choke back the last bit of liquid in my glass with force. "Yeah. We didn’t talk for like, a month after the breakup but we came to realise we’re kind of shit without the other person."

The corners of Phil’s mouth tug up a little bit.

"It was fucking weird at first because I was determined to like, let her go," I say, "but I— I don’t really have any other friends. Which is the whole thing, right?" I throw an intent look at him. I didn’t expect this to turn into an amateur therapy session, but my brain feels too foggy already to give a damn. "Like, I was _depending_ on her. And it wasn’t good for her— for either of us."

I reach forward and grab the bottle of water from the coffee table. I shouldn’t trust myself with any more alcohol tonight, that much is clear.

"It sounds… complicated," Phil makes it sound more like a question, "But also… good that you’re still friends. And now I’m your friend as well."

"Are you?" I look at him over the rim of my wine glass. "Better tell me what _your_ middle name is, then."

 

***

 

Philip Michael Lester.

That’s the name I take to bed tonight. I’m still thinking about all the things Phil’s told me when my head hits the pillow, heavy with a little too much Malibu. We kind of played this whole 21 Questions thing in reverse, I guess, starting off with the hard-hitting emotional confessions and ending with "What’s your favourite anime?".

It’s _Psycho Pass_ which, I admit, is certainly not what I expected. But he babbled on immediately, naming other great anime shows like _Attack on Titan_ — I mean, _obviously_ — _Akame Ga Kill_ , and _Your Lie in April_.

I haven’t seen the latter so I make a mental note to check it out as soon as possible.

We discovered that we have even more things in common than we thought we did, and I can’t help to realise the things we do _not_ have in common, compliment each other greatly. 

My cheeks hurt from smiling so much and my head is spinning a little as I once again, in the middle of the night, tap my way into Phil’s Instagram profile. He doesn’t post too much and not every picture has his face in it so I find myself scrolling down and down and down until I find a picture where he smiles directly into the camera. His hair is tousled with snow and he’s wearing his glasses.

It feels like I’m riding a roller coaster for the first time, with my eyes wide open and my hands squeezed tight around my phone, knowing the fall is inevitable. And yet, it punches the air out of my lungs and I feel myself unable to breathe for the fraction of a second, staring at the picture, knowing I spent my entire day with this very person and now they’re in the room opposite mine, only a few metres away.

Maybe, just for tonight, I won’t deny myself the warmth that blooms in my chest.

There’s no way I’m going to sleep tonight, my chest feels like it’s been lit on fire, keeping me wide awake. And I _know_ Phil is awake too, and maybe, just maybe, not merely because the alcohol doesn’t mix well with his pills.


	5. für elise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i'm a sucker for piano dan wbk

I don’t feel like talking. I don’t feel like getting out of bed. I don’t even feel like opening my eyes.

My blanket is pulled up all the way under my chin, covering my body entirely and I guess it’s too hot in the morning heat of June but I don’t even care. There’s a pounding in my head and as soon as I reach full consciousness I’m not sure whether it’s the consequence of the alcohol or punishment for staring at Phil’s face on my phone screen for the better part of the night.

I press the palms of my hands against my closed eyes until it physically hurts, listening into myself, almost _hearing_ the throbbing of my head, waiting for the warmth in my chest to appear again.

It never comes.

Where there was a feeling of comfort, of ease, just a couple hours ago there’s now nothing but sharp embarrassment and bitter guilt. The good feeling is so far gone, I almost can’t remember what it felt like, but just knowing it had been right there, in my chest, enveloping my heart, is enough to make me sick.

 _I shouldn’t feel like this. Not when looking — or just_ thinking _— about Phil._

I know it could be worse. Sure, I don’t feel on top of my game today, but at least I do _feel_. It’s not nice feelings but it’s something.

It may take two hours but I do get out of bed. I manage to shower. To brush my teeth. To dress myself.

Phil is gone. I find a sticky note stuck to the fridge when I finally, at 2 pm, decide it’s time to eat something. I’m not feeling my usual appetite but I do feel hungry. The sticky note has little pokémons all over it and Phil’s handwriting is a little smudged and it definitely pinches the bubble of embarrassment inside my chest, but it lures the first smile of the day out of me.

 

I’m out for the whole day today! Would have made you coffee but you’ve been in the shower for an hour already and I have a feeling it would be cold by the time you get out.  
Put the cake in the fridge, it’s still delicious. Flour, egg, and chocolate mixed together have absolutely no right to taste this good.  
Happy second day of being 21!!

— your flatmate (Phil)

 

***

 

I sit around in my pants all day, playing video games, alternating between _Final Fantasy, Mario Kart_ , and _Call of Duty_. But I’m only half focused. The flat feels too big without Phil here but I’m not sure if it would make me feel better or worse if he was around.

The thoughts of last night won’t leave me alone.

I can feel my brain slowly starting to puzzle everything together, the warmth in my chest, the fluttery feeling, my cheeks hurting from smiling so much. But I won’t let it. I won’t let it come to the conclusion.

I log back into Twitter, finally, almost choking on air when I see my follower count has somehow tripled overnight. Thirty thousand people are now following my shitposting. Just because AmazingPhil tweeted me.

People that have followed me since forever are asking questions now. _Since when do you know AmazingPhil?_ and _Are you friends?_ or even _omg i ship it!!_

I roll my eyes at the last one. People are willing to ship absolutely everything, it’s kind of annoying. Not that I have anything against shipping, but they have never seen me and Phil interact with each other except this _one_ tweet. There’s literally no water to let a ship sail onto.

I lean back into the cushions. Even though technically no one can see that I’m online, I still feel like I have thousands of eyes watching me. I guess I should tweet. I kind of _have_ to now.

 

@danisnotonfire thanks for all the birthday wishes!! 21 and still not able to grow facial hair

 

@danisnotonfire also @AmazingPhil thank u for the cake there’s nothing left now btw so u better bring home dinner

 

I stare at the second tweet, gnawing on my bottom lip. It’s funny and it’s true and it’s what I _want_ to say, but I also know people will flip their shit. And I think it should be Phil who reveals that he has a flatmate to the internet. I don’t know _why_ who he lives with would be important to anyone out there but I just have this feeling. So I delete the tweet before sending and log out.

 

The sun is slowly starting to set, colouring the sky outside my window in shades of red and purple. I have watched the first couple episodes of _Your Lie in April_ , but my stomach is growling so loud I can barely concentrate on reading the subtitles anymore.

I _could_ cook something. Or just eat cereal. Or order something. But eating alone feels weird now, after having every single meal of every single day for the past week together with Phil.

He’ll probably be home soon anyway, it’s already nine at night after all. And he’ll probably be starving as well and then we can just have cereal together and maybe watch more _Buffy_.

The fuzzy feeling is back. It’s right there, in the middle of my chest, and it’s stretching out the more I think about Phil. And it feels good. It’s almost like the mild rush of drinking a glass of wine too fast. It feels so good and it came so sudden and so out of the blue, it’s too much to handle.

My eyes fall on the piano. It’s right there too, pushed against the wall of the living room, a bunch of Phil’s knick-knacks still sitting on top of it.

I make the decision, if you can even call it that, in a split second. I don’t have a desk chair so I run down the hallway to Phil’s room to get his. It’s tempting but I don’t stay in his room longer than I need to, _I just want the chair._ I roll it in front of the piano and sit down. It’s been a while since I have played but once I open the lid that’s covering the keys I feel it rushing back to me. 

My fingers hover over the keys for a few seconds, then they sink down and start pressing gently. It’s almost like the tones fill the room with the warmth I feel in my chest. Different from the summer heat, not pressing and burning but comfortable and somehow a little floaty.

I play _Für Elise_.

The piano is a little bit out of tune but it doesn’t sound bad. It probably erases the mistakes I’m surely making.

I stop sharp when I hear a door falling shut behind me.

"Oh f— shit, sorry," Phil is standing where the hallway ends and the living area begins, hands buried in the pockets of his black jeans, "Sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt you."

"You didn’t— I was just…" I turn halfway around on his desk chair. "I— Uh, I took your chair."

"That’s alright."

I take a moment to look at him, and I’m glad I just practically played the warmth out of my chest because I’m pretty sure if it was still inside me, I couldn’t bare the view of him in a light denim jacket.

"It sounded great," he says, letting the backpack that has been swung over his shoulder sink to the floor and stepping closer, "Scoot over."

I don’t even question it. I make room for him on the chair and it’s uncomfortable, sure, but I don’t feel anything when he sits down beside me, the side of his leg pressed against mine from thigh to knee. It’s like my emotional palette has been wiped clean.

"Play again," he says gently.

It sounds worse this time. Maybe because my hands are a little shaky, for whatever reason, maybe because my mind is elsewhere, maybe because the growling in my stomach is almost unendurable.

Phil doesn't seem to notice, neither the growling nor the mistakes my fingers make, his head is slowly swaying. "I really like that."

" _Fur Elise_?" I ask, letting my fingers come to a halt.

He nods.

"Me too," I say, "I think it’s my favourite classic. I don’t… I normally don’t really like to play classics, I think it’s a bit boring." I duck my head a little as if my old piano teacher could somehow hear and punish me right then and there. "I teach myself stuff from video games mostly. But I love _Fur Elise_."

"Can you show me," Phil asks, "like, how to play? Just the beginning I mean. I surely can’t do the middle part."

I feel the corners of my mouth tug upward. "That’s the thing," I say, "Beethoven wrote it for the girl he wanted to marry and he made it really easy to play because she was a shit piano player. But when it turned out she didn’t want to marry him, he added parts that are so difficult she would never be able to play it herself."

"Wow. Beethoven was one petty bitch."

I laugh at that, my shoulder bumping gently into Phil’s. And then I show him. I show him how to place his fingers and which key to press first and in what pace. It doesn’t take more than two seconds for us both to realise that Phil has next to no finger-coordination. I tell him to press down one finger of one hand and he does the complete opposite, laughing nervously.

"I’m Elise!" he sighs dramatically, "Only that I’m too dumb to play even the simple parts."

"Actually her name was Therese," I say, "And you’re not dumb."

He sighs again and shuffles in his seat, our sides are now fully pressed into each other, then Phil reaches his hand out again and lays it upon mine, pressing it down on one key. He laughs like a child in preschool at the sound it creates. His hand is still there. And my skin is burning.

The growl my stomach makes is so loud it sounds like an actual lion is standing in the living room.

Phil yanks his hand back. "Oh my gosh, didn’t you eat today?"

"I ate all of what was left of the cake," I say, "like, seven hours ago."

"Dan," he says strictly, shaking his head.

I bite down on my lip, hard, in order not to tell him that even just the thought of eating alone had felt unsettling.

"You’re lucky I am the best flatmate in the entire world," he says, "as I have brought home sandwiches!"

"Sandwiches?"

"A little more excitement please," he says, standing up and leaving my one butt cheek alone on the chair.

"Yeah, no, yeah," I stammer, "I mean… Have you been grocery shopping or?"

"Oh," he makes on his way to the kitchen, "No. I had an appointment with, uh, with my therapist in the morning and then I had like, work meetings and there’s always food around. We split the leftovers."

I follow him into the kitchen and watch him fish two clean plates out of the dishwasher. "Work meetings," I repeat, "For like, Youtube?"

He nods, "Yup."

"But… sorry, I don’t really know how any of this works," I say, "You know I’m a Twitter kind of guy—"

"Have you seen your follower count by the way?" he asks excitedly.

I nod, "It’s insane. Only from one tweet."

Phil grins.

"I’m sure they’ll realise I’m just shitposting and meme dumping in a week or two and fuck off again."

"They won’t, trust me."

"Anyway." I watch Phil draw a couple of Tupperware boxes out of his backpack, opening them, and placing sandwiches on each of the plates. "Youtube work meetings. I mean. Do you like, have an editor? Or a manager? Or—"

"A manager, yeah," he says, "It’s useful for like, sponsorships and law stuff. But I do everything else myself. Filming, editing, video ideas, merchandise."

"You have merch?"

"Uh, yeah. AmazingPhilShop.com."

I laugh at that. The little look of discomfort on his face is too precious.

 

We eat our sandwiches in the kitchen, both too hungry to move to the sofa and put something on the telly, apparently. I tell him about _Your Lie in April_ and Phil has to cup both his hands over his mouth in order not to "spoil and ruin literally everything oh my gosh Dan please make sure to finish it soon I need to talk about it".

Later in bed, I check out the AmazingPhil shop and my merch loving heart actually skips a beat. It’s easy to tell when someone puts a second thought into their merchandise rather than just putting _something_ out there. Phil’s stuff is quirky and colourful but in a toned down and condensed version so that it’s everyday appropriate. _I would wear that._

And the pictures of him modelling the clothes…

My phone buzzes and lights up with a text message. **Marcia (1:22 am):** _new york is so beautiful i never want to leave_

I steal one last glance at Phil’s beautiful pale face peeking out from under the hood of a brilliant white plant jumper before I shut my laptop and grab my phone instead.

 **Dan (1:23 am):** _good thing yale university is so close by then_

 **Marcia:** _it’s like a two hour train ride but i’m not complaining_

 **Marcia:** _why are you awake btw isn’t it like 2 in the morning there??_

 **Marcia:** _oh nvm it’s you i forgot_

 **Dan:** _i already miss you_

 **Marcia:** _same. how’s living with phil?_

 **Dan:** _good i mean it has hardly changed in the 24 hours you’ve been gone_

 **Dan:** _so how long are you staying in nyc?_

 **Marcia:** _three days. i have a meet up with other abroad students here and then we’ll travel to yale on monday._

 **Dan:** _i’m so proud of you mars_

 **Marcia:** _< 3_

 **Marcia:** _you should probably sleep buddy. and maybe turn your phone off because i’m going out in an hour or so and i will spam you with pictures_

My neck starts to hurt a bit from where it’s propped up against two pillows. I’m gnawing on my bottom lip again until I can taste blood. _I need to stop doing that._

 **Dan:** _mar can i talk to you about something_

_Oh fuck oh shit oh no abort mission abort mission! What am I doing?_

**Marcia:** _yeah sure! what is it?_

I stare at the screen. Even though the brightness is at its lowest my eyes start to burn.

 **Dan:** ~~_i feel funny when i look at phil and i’m scared_~~

 _No, I cannot_ _send that._

 **Dan:** ~~_i think i like someone_~~

_No, this is weird._

**Dan:** _I ~~M FUCKING CONFUSED~~_

I turn my head and press my face into the pillow and groan out loud.

 **Marcia (1:39 am):** _dan are you still there?_

 **Dan:** _yes_

The three dots appear, disappear, and pop up again. It takes almost two minutes.

 **Marcia (1:41 am):** _it’s okay._

I swallow. My throat feels tight and dry and numb. _What is okay? What does she know? Is there something for her to know? Am I being obvious?_

 **Marcia:** _whatever it is, you can tell me. i may be an ocean away but i’ll always be there for you. whatever it is, dan, i’m your friend and i love u._

I close my eyes because I can actually feel tears rising up.

 **Marcia (1:50 am):** _i hope you’re okay_

 **Dan (2:00 am):** _i am okay._


	6. daddy issues

Marcia did not lie — not that I expected her to — she really spams me with pictures over night. I look at them through heavy eyes while simultaneously eating Crunchy Nut and watching _Buffy_.

"Your phone will fall into the bowl," Phil comments. He’s sitting in what is known as his corner of the sofa, shovelling cereal into his mouth himself with his legs pulled up to his chest. Sitting like this and with his hair disheveled from sleep, he reminds me of L from _Death Note_.

As if on cue, my phone slips down my palm a little bit, but I catch it.

"Heard from Marcia?"

"Uh-huh," I make with my mouth full and toss him my phone so he can have a look at the pictures as well.

Phil places his empty bowl on the coffee table, then he starts swiping through the pictures. "Wow. Looks like she’s having fun! And she seems to have found friends already."

I swallow, "She’s staying with other abroad students for a couple of days, yeah."

"New York City is so fricking cool," he says dreamily, handing me the mobile back.

"Been there?"

He nods, "Yeah. As like a Youtube thing. Once. I wanted to vlog it but my camera broke halfway through the trip so everything I have left is like, five minutes of crappy, shaky video footage and a couple pixelated Instagram posts."

"Hm." I place my empty bowl beside his. "But isn’t that like, a thing for Youtubers? Don’t you have to go to America all the time? For like, conventions?"

Phil’s eyes drop to his knees. "I… I mean, I guess, yeah. But I, uh, I never go to these things anymore. I’ve been to this thing in London before, Summer in the City, but— I can’t really do it anymore because… because of the anxiety thing."

"Oh." It feels like a fist is closing around my heart, squeezing. "Is it really that bad?"

He shrugs and drives a hand through his messy hair. "I mean, I told you. I’m fine if I take my meds and stay in my comfort zone."

"Your comfort zone as in right in that corner of the sofa?" I ask and force a grin on my face as an attempt to lighten the mood.

"Basically," he smiles, but the air is still thick with unspoken confessions. I have this dawning feeling that’s pushing down on me again, that I have only just scratched the surface of what is Phil Lester.

"If you, uh… If you want to talk…"

He blinks at me, then reaches his left leg out and nudges me in the side with his foot. "It’s okay. Thanks, though. I’m glad you’re my flatmate."

"Are you?"

"Yeah," he nods, and the smile is gone.

 

It’s ridiculous but Phil makes me play the piano while he does the washing up and cleans all the surfaces in the kitchen and the living room. I offer him to help and just put on some _Fall Out Boy_ in the background but he shakes his head and points at the piano.

"You’re basically enslaving me here, mate," I say, pressing the wrong key on purpose.

"Play something you really like. Like, your favourite."

My eyes fall onto the keys, my fingers hovering above them. I have this thing, I guess, with music in general but especially piano. Although people always tell me I’m very _articulate_ — "You have such a way with words, Dan, you’d surely make a great lawyer!" — most times, I can’t seem to find the right words. And that’s when I turn to music. It’s always been like that.And when even Tyler Joseph can’t put into words how I’m feeling anymore, there’s always the piano. Sometimes, one note says more than thousands of the right words.

So no, I won’t play my favourite. Because I’m scared it will reveal my inner turmoil, lay it open for Phil to see. Maybe Phil would see and understand even before I could. I’m not ready to be seen.

Phil almost wipes one of his houseplants from the windowsill while cleaning it.

I let my hands wander over the piano, quick and gentle. I flinch a little every time the instrument that’s so old and out of tune brings the note out wrong, but Phil doesn’t seem to notice.

"Is that Justin Bieber?" he asks after a while, standing in the middle of the room with his head tilted up toward the ceiling a little bit as if he’d been listening closely.

I stop, "Yeah. It’s _Sorry_."

"That’s your favourite?" he snorts, "I mean, it sounds great but—"

"It’s not," I say, and before he can demand anything else, I start playing _Für Elise_.

 

***

 

The next few days go by like that, with me playing the piano in the morning, Phil often sitting beside me on the same chair with a cup of steaming hot coffee in his hand. He tells me I’m "insanely talented" and I laugh it off because Phil is probably the least musical person in the world. I could probably play him a string of random notes and tell him it’s an acoustic cover of an MCR song and he’d believe it.

It’s comforting.

I can’t remember the last time I had so many good days in a row. Sometimes, I feel my mood dip a little bit, but then I watch Phil play Zelda for a couple of hours, not saying a single word, and then I’m back on track.

I have my grandmother on the phone one day, telling me off and convincing me to finally come down to Wokingham the next Sunday. Phil listens to her voice screaming out of my phone and giggles into his fist.

Exam results go online on Thursday and Marcia texts me a string of crying emojis as a reaction to her perfect scores in each one of them. She has fully moved into a dorm at Yale now, sharing the room with a girl called Juliette. They seem to get on well because on Friday, there’s a selfie of them both on Marcia’s Instagram.

I don’t look at the results. I think I know what I would find.

 

"My mum comes over tomorrow," Phil announces over our morning ritual of cereal and _Buffy_ on the couch in the living room. Well, he’s the only one still eating because apparently, "some monster came overnight and ate all your cereal, Dan" and there wasn’t enough for me to have a satisfying-sized bowl.

" _Best flatmate in the entire world_ ," I had imitated Phil’s words from the other day, then flipped him the bird, "My ass."

"I’m sorry!" he had ducked his head between his shoulder blades, "I didn’t realise how much I had eaten of it!" We had ended up laughing, yes, but I’m also a tiny bit grumpy.

So now I’m more or less lying on the couch with my feet in Phil’s lap, nudging his bowl of Lucky Charms with my toe from time to time because _it’s what he deserves_.

"Oh," I make, "Why’s she coming over?"

"Uh, because?" Phil says, raising his eyebrows, "She comes over quite often. And she hasn’t met you yet. Well, except for the pictures I’ve sent her."

"You sent her pictures of me?"

"She was basically _harassing_ me for it." He’s blushing. He’s _actually_ blushing. "So I took a picture of you when you were playing the piano yesterday and sent it to her."

"Ever heard of consent, mate?" I ask but make no attempt of pulling my feet away from where they’re touching him. I do quite the opposite, actually, nudging my toes into his side.

"Oi," he makes, "Sorry."

I shake my head, "It’s fine."

"As far as I know her, she’s probably going to bring some cake."

"Then she’s very welcome here," I put on my sweetest smile.

Phil’s eyes wander over my face for just the fraction of a second, then he tears them away and leans forward, kind of trapping my feet between his belly and legs, and places the bowl on the coffee table.

"I’m going home on Sunday," I say.

"To Wokingham?"

"No, silly, my other home in Moscow, Russia," I counter.

Phil’s head snaps back at me and he rolls his eyes. "Ha ha."

I grin, "My grandma is pissed because I haven’t visited in like, a month. Not even for my birthday."

"Fair enough," Phil shrugs, "It’s your responsibility, as the Birthday Kid, to pay a visit to your roots."

I huff, "Yeah, right."

"You don’t like going home?"

"Well, first of all, it’s like a four-hour train ride from here. Second of all, not really, no."

"Why?"

"Ugh," I make, "Do I have to get into the daddy issues?"

Phil snorts and laughs breathily, but then he turns silent for a moment. "Only if you want to. Maybe we can share experiences."

I sit up and pull my legs out of his lap, "You’re not telling me _you_ , Mister 'my mother comes over often just because', have family issues."

"Believe it or not." His voice has a slightly cold sting to it. I probably wouldn’t notice it if I wasn’t spending all my time listening to him babbling away happily all day.

I don’t really want to talk about my dad. Because talking about my dad means talking about my mum and talking about my mum means talking about expectations and talking about expectation means talking about university. And talking about university means thinking about exam results.

"My dad isn’t really a fan of the whole Youtube thing," Phil says. His voice is serious but the slight icy tone in it is gone. "Well, he wasn’t a fan of my major at uni either. He has this perception of what a" He rolls his eyes. " _man_ should be like. And that’s basically everything I’m not."

I hesitate. I could just say _oh_ and shrug it off and return my attention to _Buffy_. Except I really like learning new things about Phil. The way he leaves his contact lens pot on the tap every evening only for me to smack it into the sink the next morning, or that he drinks his coffee with milk and two cubes of sugar, or even that he seems to like my cereal better than his but refuses to buy a carton for himself. But I guess there are things to learn about him that aren’t funny or adorable, too. And I’m slightly terrified at the fact that I want to know these even more.

"But it’s a job," I say, "And a really good one, I suppose."

Phil nods, "I know. But he doesn’t really get it. And my mum doesn’t get it either, but she tries at least."

"I kind of avoid my dad like the plague," I say, because it’s only fair I share something myself, isn’t it? "I guess he’s similar to yours. He has these high expectations he wants to force onto me, like studying law even though I’m utter shit at it."

Phil’s nodding becomes more enthusiastic. "Yes! Same with mine. That’s why I did language and linguistics first at uni. He was under the impression I was striving to become a teacher or something like that for three years straight while I sat in my dorm and made Youtube videos."

"But he must know you’re not suddenly going to become a teacher now," I say.

"Oh, he does know that," Phil shrugs again, "Doesn’t mean he likes hearing about it."

It makes me think about my own dad. Phil isn’t that much older than me, four years isn’t so much of a difference, but he has already gone through it all. And he didn’t die, obviously. So why do I feel like dying every time I think about sitting my parents down and telling them _anything_?

"Sometimes I think the only thing my parents like about me is my relationship with Marcia." The words are out before I can think twice about what they may sound like.

Phil’s face falls just a little bit. "But— I mean. I thought you broke up."

"Exactly," I nod, "But we _had_ been dating for three years. And I don’t know if you have noticed but she’s basically this super genius alien in the body of a twenty-year-old. We grew up together, in houses next to each other, our parents are friends. And the entire time while we were dating it felt like a race. A race I couldn’t win even if I tried. And Marcia wasn’t even competing, she was just doing her thing, but my parents — my dad — always compared me to her and told me I had to get my shit together or otherwise she would, and everyone else would, leave me."

I pause and wait for Phil to say something. But he doesn’t.

"And I mean, they were right. Mar probably couldn’t care less what I study at university, but the thing is, I’m just a bloody confused mess _all the time_. I’m half-assing everything, even if I don’t mean to. It was holding her back."

It hurts, thinking that the harshest words my dad has ever said to me — _"You need to get your life in order now, Daniel, you’re a hinderance for everyone around you"_ — are actually nothing less than the truth.

"You know that’s bullshit, right," Phil says finally, his voice gentler and warmer than before, "You’re barely twenty-one. You’re not supposed to have your crap together. _No one_ has their crap together at twenty-one."

It feels like a plug has been pulled out of some emotional valve in my brain. _You know that’s bullshit, right._  
Maybe it is. Maybe it is not. All I know is that Phil is right there, his eyes big and blue and green and yellow, and I do not have to think about this right now.

 _You’re not supposed to have your crap together_. I hope that is true, because in that moment, I feel myself slowly falling, unable to do anything about it, lost in the certainty of his face, and I really do not have my crap together at all.


	7. kath

"Speaking of my job," Phil says after two more episodes of _Buffy_ during which none of us has spoken a single word, "Youtube. I wanted to ask you something."

I’m hugging a cushion to my chest and have been trying my hardest not to look in his direction for the past hour. _I’m so bloody confused_. About everything. I’ve spent the past forty minutes trying to reminisce every time I’ve felt affection toward anyone that was not part of my family.

There’s Marcia, of course. And I guess I liked this girl, Jessy, in kindergarten because she built the biggest sandcastles and always shared her Pom-Bear crisps — not sure if that even counts.

And that’s where my brooding becomes so deep I can hear the cogwheels turning in my brain. Because Marcia is a girl.

But then there was Tobey, the guy who always skipped P.E., just like I did, and sat beside me and, unlike me, got away with it in the end. And there was Lucas, who worked at Marcia’s and my favourite pizza place in Wokingham. And now there is Phil.

And I feel this tingly feeling everywhere, in my chest, in my limbs. It’s as if I’m falling, the passing air rushing in my ears, the ground under me spinning.

My palms are sweaty, kneading the cushion.

I’ve felt this before. I’ve felt like this every time Marcia and I did something for the first time together. I felt it every time she looked at me, laughing, with her nose scrunched. Marcia is a girl.

But I feel it right now, actively trying not to look at the person I’m sharing the sofa with. And Phil is a boy.

"So what do you think?"

My mind is racing about a million miles per second. My first instinct after admitting to myself that I’m definitely developing a crush right here and now is to feel shame. Because _what_? I’m really going to fall in love with the first person that I let even remotely close?  
But then I remember Tobey and Lucas and bite my lip so hard it bleeds. I’ve felt it before; before Phil, and before Marcia.

"Dan?"

The next thing I feel is guilt. _Has it not been real? Have I lied to Marcia’s face for three years straight? Have I worn a mask the entire time and not even noticed it?_

But it had felt good, a small voice inside me screams. Everything I did with Marcia, the kissing, the sex, it had all felt good and _right_.

Phil is scooting closer now, reaching his hand out and nudging my shoulder. The touch burns. "Dan?"

Finally, I snap out of it. There is something like a suction in my brain, pulling all these thoughts back into the box with an X drawn on it where they belong. Except now I _know_ where to find them.

"Sorry." I clear my throat, "What’d you say?"

Phil’s expression is a mix of concern and confusion. He leans back into his corner of the couch, though, draping one arm over the backrest. "I was asking… You don’t have to say yes."

I make a gesture with my hand, encouraging him to go on.

"Like… I don’t know… I mean. Would you film a video with me?"

I raise my eyebrows.

"I mean." He drives a hand through his hair, pushing his fringe off his forehead. "We have been living together for three weeks now and you know about the Youtube stuff and I’d like to introduce you to my viewers. But only if you are okay with it." He’s biting his bottom lip nervously. "If you don’t want to be in a video I could just introduce you in one of my liveshows. And if you want to do none of that that’s cool, too. No pressure. If that’s what you like you can just stay the name- and faceless flatmate. People would—"

"Phil."

"— probably —"

"Phi-il!" I roll my eyes but can’t help the grin that’s stretching out from one of my ears to the other. "Stop."

"Sorry." He ducks his head.

"I’d love to film a video with you."

He looks back up immediately and it’s almost like some weird animation come to real life because I swear his eyes are sparkling. "Really?"

"Yeah," I say and shrug, trying to make the whole thing casual, "Why not? I can’t promise you I’ll be good in front of a camera, though."

 

***

 

The set-up looks quite ominous: A camera on a tripod and two giant soft boxes pointing at Phil’s bed. The ceiling light _and_ the fairy lights are turned on as well. The room is basically on fire.

"Excuse me but…" I let my voice trail off and instead proceed to take off my jumper, leaving me in a plain black t-shirt. "Do we need _all_ the lights on?"

Phil nods enthusiastically. "Good lighting is the key."

"If you say so, mate." I drop my jumper to the floor. "Where do you want me to— Where should I sit?"

"Uh, just on the bed? Beside me, I guess."

"Right."

It dawns on me that I haven’t actually been in Phil’s room properly before. Stealing his desk chair for morning piano sessions hardly counts. It’s slightly smaller than my room which makes it a little bit odd that he chose this room since he has _way_ more stuff than me.

But the reasoning behind his choice quickly becomes clear.

It’s already quite late, after dinner — Pad Thai from Wagamamas — and the sun is setting outside, right before his window. It must be facing west. The sky is perfectly free of clouds and now tinged in red, pink, and purple.

"So I tweeted earlier," Phil says, standing bent over and fumbling with the camera, "Asking for questions to ask my new flatmate."

"Which would be me."

"Which would be you," he says and finally flops down on the bed. A red light is blinking next to the lens of the camera.

"Is it filming already?" I ask.

"Yeah."

"Could have given me a warning mate," I say, instantly starting to ruffle my hair, "Need to sort myself out first."

"You look just fine."

Which is a plain lie, and we both know it. Living with Phil is great but it also messes with my self-esteem a little bit because no matter how hard I try, my attempt at an emo fringe _never_ looks as good as his. Some mornings, I’m actually _this_ close to giving up my straighteners and just letting the curls run free. But we’re not there yet.

"Okay?"

"Yeah?" I drive my hand through my hair one last time.

"Yeah."

 

***

 

Marcia’s laugh is loud and shrill and I have to hold the phone a few centimetres away from my ear. "And then the escalator stopped, _thank god_ , before her whole foot could be sucked into it. But it was so abrupt that she fell over and now she has a scar on her hand that looks like, and I kid you not, Danny," she pauses dramatically, "Abraham Lincoln."

" _What_?" _Nothing_ of this story makes any sense. It’s six in the morning and I have no idea what the fuck I just listened to.

Marcia giggles, "Yeah. Anyway, that was my day. First brainfreeze from too much ice cream and then almost dying because we’re too dumb to tie our shoelaces."

"Sounds like you’re having a fricking blast."

She’s silent for a second. "Hey, are you alright?"

I sigh, "Yeah, 'm okay. ’s six in the morning here, though, so have mercy with me."

She starts humming.

"I _knew_ you were going to do that." I press my face into my pillow. "No Shawn Mendes before noon please."

"Fine," she says, "I’m tired now, though."

"You sound so happy, Mar."

"I _am_! Juliette— It’s great here, Dan."

I stretch my legs out and each of them cracks awfully. "I’m glad."

None of us says a word for a couple of minutes, we’re both just lying in our beds, an ocean and a five hour time difference between us. _I’ve missed this kind of silence._

"You alright there?" she asks then.

"Just tired," I repeat.

"I mean apart from that."

"Oh." I rub my eyes with my free hand. "I mean, yeah. Phil and I filmed a video for his channel yesterday which was… fun, I guess. And his mum is coming over later today."

"Ew, why?"

"Right?" I sit up. I’m properly awake now — _at an ungodly hour like 6 am, who am I?_ "Apparently his mum comes over just because. They have like, a family bond."

"Sounds fake but okay," Marcia says and I can hear her grinning, "Meeting the parents, though. Wow, Dan."

"Ha ha," I make dryly, "It’s only his mum. Oh! And I’m going home on Sunday."

"Did Nana yell at you through the phone?"

"Yep."

"Fair enough," I can hear Marcia shifting in her bed, "Oh god, I’m sure she made meringues. Please send some over."

"Sure," I grin, "I’ll tell her you miss her."

"I do."

"I know," I say, "I’m sure she misses you, too. She’s always liked you best."

"The order is as follows," Marcia clears her throat, "Me, you, Adrian."

"Can’t believe she’s the only one that looks past Adrian’s bullshit," I agree.

Marcia laughs. "He’s not that bad and you know it."

"He’s a fiend."

"I mean… yeah. But still." She doesn’t sound too convinced, "He’s like, what? Fifteen. We were annoying too when we were fifteen."

"Anyway." _Time to change the subject. If I only had something to talk about._

Marcia is silent on the other end of the line again but somehow, this time it feels a little different. _Again._ This seems to happen to our silences more and more lately. They feel… _loaded_ , like there is something we’re both not saying.

"I think I’m going back to sleep now," I say at the same time as she says "Can I ask you something?"

"Oh," I make, "Uh, yeah. Shoot."

I listen to her breathe in and out a couple of times before she finally asks, "Would you tell me if you liked someone, Dan?"

"Huh?" I feel my heart sink. _What?_

"You know what I mean," she says, "If you fancied someone. Just. Would you tell me?"

 _There’s no way I’m going back to sleep. Ever._ "I— I mean I guess."

 _I have to play it safe. Saf_ er _._

"But. Why? Would that be weird?"

"No!" she says _too_ quickly and with _too_ much force behind it, "It wouldn’t be weird at all. And… and would you want to know if I liked someone, too?"

There’s a twinge in my stomach. I’m not going to lie, I have always had problems with jealousy. Not the pretty kind, though, where it is about protecting and loving someone so much and refusing let anyone else have them — no, the ugly kind, the one that’s rooted in deep insecurity and the fear of being left alone.

But it feels different right now. First of all, the twinge is unpleasant but not full-on unsettling. If I think about it, I don’t mind someone else liking Marcia more than just platonically, not at all. I’m a little scared it might scar our friendship, yes, but from a completely objective point of view, I couldn’t care any less if she kissed someone that isn’t me.

" _Is_ there someone you like?" I ask carefully.

There is a sound of a door opening and falling shut, then two girls laughing and the squeak of a mattress.

"Oof," Marcia makes, "Sorry, Dan, I have to go now. We’ll talk again soon, okay? Text me about Phil’s mum, I bet she’s some kind of alien and he is too because who the fuck has a good relationship with their parents, am I right?"

Even though she’s thousands of kilometres away, I can tell she’s bullshitting right now. She hasn’t not heard my question.

"Okay," I say.

"Tell Nana I miss her loads."

"Okay."

And then she hangs up. Just like that. Leaving me alone with an unanswered question and a million confused thoughts.

 

***

 

 **Dan (3:55 pm):** _they like hug and stuff_

 

 **Marcia:** _wtf that’s unheard of_

 **Marcia:** _get off your phone though and make a good first impression you dingus_

 

"And you must be Daniel!" Mrs Lester says, a wide smile on her face, and to my surprise, she opens her arms and pulls me in for a hug. "I’m so glad Philly isn’t alone anymore. Did not do him any good."

"Mum," Phil says warningly.

I grin and decide to take Marcia’s advice to heart. "It’s so nice to meet you, Mrs Lester."

"Oh no no no, my child," she says, "I may be old but surely not _that_ old. Call me Kath, please." She lets go of my shoulders and waves a hand in Phil’s direction. "Son, take my bag to the kitchen, I brought food."

 

We spend the afternoon actually making use out of the breakfast bar we have been ignoring for weeks. We sit around it on stools with no upholstery, which Kath complains about _twice_ but with a strangely loving undertone to her voice, and drink homemade iced tea she brought over.

If I thought the _Why I Was A Weird Kid_ series on Phil’s Youtube channel was funny then hearing these anecdotes in real life and told by his own mother is downright hilarious. I don’t think I have ever cried of laughter before.

" _Please_ stop, Mum." Phil is almost crying himself, but for him, it’s out of pure embarrassment.

"Come on, Philip, you have shared these stories with the _internet_ " She says the word like it’s the name of some new found land. "before. I’m sure Daniel has heard of them."

"I have," I pant through the laughter, "but I didn’t know Phil not only ate the fish food but he also dumped the goldfish into the bath with him and asked it to teach him tricks."

Kath shakes his head, "I questioned a lot of things in that moment."

"Hey!" Phil pouts, "I’m right here!"

"We’re not shaming you, Phil," I say, carefully laying a hand upon his shoulder, "We’re judging, yes, but we’re not shaming."

Phil holds my eye contact for longer than necessary and I’m literally about to forget that _his mother_ is sitting here with us when there is a horrible crack and a splash of liquid.

Phil jumps back immediately, escaping the touch of my hand that stays hanging in the air, not really knowing what to do. He curses.

"Oh, Phil," Kath shakes her head, a little smile still on her lips nonetheless that says _It was bound to happen, I know my child._

I follow her gaze to the mess on the bar. Phil had somehow managed to drop _and_ shatter his mug that was still half full of delicious iced tea.

"That’s what happens when you hold the mug like this," Kath says, her voice all parent-y now. She demonstrates it, holding her own mug not by the handle but with her hand just loosely wrapped around the other side. "That’s why the handle is there, Philip."

"Sorry," Phil says, already halfway into the kitchen to grab a towel.

I sprint after him and together, we clean the mess up. Due to some miracle, next to nothing of the sticky liquid got on the floor. "I caught it all with my jeans," Phil whines and then excuses himself to his bedroom to change. I wipe the last bit of tea from the surface and fall back down on my stool.

"I would make him a coffee or something," I say to no one in particular as I realise the can of iced tea is empty now, "but he has already had two this morning and I don’t know how much instant one can drink before it becomes toxic."

Kath laughs but her face falls pretty fast, and then she’s just watching me, studying my face.

I just smile, feeling squirmy in my seat.

"It’s astounding," she says pensively, "I haven’t seen him this happy in so long."

I try to cover up a snort with a giggle, "He didn’t seem too happy when you told the story about how he tried to break his own arm."

The pensive expression doesn’t change in the slightest, "Yeah. But no, actually. You must know, for the past year, Phil has been nothing but a shell of himself. I could tell he was trying but… well, of course you know about Ian. It was so hard for him to move on after that."

"I—"

"Hey, what are you two on about?" Phil is back, standing in the doorway — in his emoji pyjama bottoms, "It looks like you two are plotting a murder or something."

Kath turns around and once she’s taken in the full view of her son in bright yellow trousers, she covers her face with her hands, "Philip Michael Lester, what on God’s holy earth are you wearing? Those are awful! Go and change!"

 

***

 

I’m out of it for the rest of the day. I’m not sure if Phil notices, but his mum definitely doesn’t as she continues showering me with all kinds of affection. Apparently, my cheeks are adorable.

Mrs Lester leaves just before dinner time. Apparently, it’s only an hour drive back to Rawtenstall and her husband will be home from work and have dinner ready by the time she arrives.

She leaves half a dozen Tupperware boxes with us and for dinner, we heat up something that looks like spaghetti with tomato sauce and meatballs. We have migrated back to our spots on the sofa that we had neglected all day and put on an episode of _The Walking Dead_. Probably not the best thing to watch while eating, but I can’t get anything down my throat anyway.

_Of course you know about Ian._

I do not know about Ian. Phil has never once mentioned that name. And what is there to know about him?

"Phil," I say aloud into the room that is otherwise filled with various characters on tv screaming in terror.

Phil slurps an especially long noodle into his mouth, splattering a little bit of sauce on his cheeks. It’s probably the least attractive thing one can do but my heart skips a beat nonetheless. _Do not go there right now, Dan._

"Huh?" he makes with his mouth full.

I reach for the remote and pause the episode. "I, uh…" _I can’t do this with a plate of food in my lap._ I place it on the coffee table and straighten my back. "Who is Ian?"


	8. confessions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello! thanks for all the lovely comments and kudos! 🖤
> 
> if you feel like it, you can reblog this story [here](http://maraudersvs.tumblr.com/post/182786621798/we-are-okay), it would mean a lot ✨ 

Phil is pretty good at sitting things out. I have to ask the same question _two_ more times before he finally sighs and places his plate on the coffee table next to mine. When his hands aren’t occupied holding cutlery anymore, he wraps them around himself, and pulls his legs up to his chest. He’s doing the Making Himself Small thing again.

"Ian is…" his voice trails off. It sounds ominous in the dark of the living room. "Ian was my friend."

I might be confused and even a tad angry that there is _still_ so much I need to learn about Phil while I’m pretty much an open book at this point, but I’m not dumb. I can piece two and two together. I can see what a difference the word _was_ makes in this context.

"Oh."

So Phil must have lost a friend.

_How do I not know this? Why has he never mentioned it? Why have I never bothered to ask?_

_But_ what _would I have asked?_

"Yeah," Phil’s voice is so quiet and yet it’s almost enough to rip my heart out of my chest, "He, uh… He was my best friend for… well, for basically all my life. My _only_ friend if you will. I wasn’t really the most popular in school."

I want to tell him that he doesn’t have to talk about this right now — not ever, if he doesn’t want to — but there is also this burning desire inside me now that’s demanding to know more about Phil. Much, much more. So much that I could paint a fucking picture of his brain right here and now and draw lines and connections to finally understand the whole of him.

"We did everything together. Studied the same thing at university. Often filmed stupid little videos together. Shared a dorm. And then…" He takes a deep breath. Then, all of a sudden his legs stretch out until his feet hit the side of my thigh.

I don’t hesitate. I lift them into my lap.

"… the one evening we weren’t together…," Phil swallows, "He got into this car accident. He was on his bike, and of course he was wearing dark clothes, and of course the driver of the car didn’t see him, and—"

 _Oh fuck._ I squeeze his foot. "It’s okay. It’s okay, Phil."

A tear drops onto Phil’s cheeks. He curses under his breath and wipes it away. "Sorry."

"There’s nothing to be sorry for," I protest.

"That’s like… where the whole anxiety thing really took off, too," Phil says, obviously trying to keep his voice from cracking, "I was always kind of panicky and on edge… I mean, you’ve heard from my mum what kind of child I was, I don’t think anyone was surprised I developed some issues—"

"Don’t say that." My voice doesn’t even have a real tone to it anymore. I wonder if this is what I look like when I’m experiencing one of my episodes. I wonder if it ever hurt Marcia to see me as much as it hurts me to see Phil like this. "Don’t _ever_ say that."

Phil doesn’t look up. "What I’m trying to say is that it became really bad from then on. I wouldn’t leave my room, not because I was afraid I was going to die like Ian but because everything would remind me of him. I would see someone riding a bike and I would _lose_ it, Dan."

All I want to do is reach out and wrap my arms around him. And for a second, when Phil’s eyes finally flutter up and he looks at me, I swear he’s _asking_ me to. But then he clears his throat and moves his feet a little bit.

"I hate talking about this," he says, "I started seeing a therapist relatively quickly after it happened because my parents noticed I wouldn’t go to any of my classes anymore. I refused medication for a long time. My first therapist was shit. The second too. The last year of uni was the worst. The only thing that kept me going was making these videos and uploading them and seeing people loving them. It was Ian’s and my hobby and it felt like I was doing this for him."

I lay one of my hands upon his shin. The material of his jeans is kind of stiff under my fingers, he probably fished them fresh out of the wash when his mum told him to change out of his emoji pyjamas.

"I started taking meds a few months ago. It took a long time before they started working. And even then I had to dose up eventually because I was hitting plateaus where my anxiety would just catch up to whatever resistance I was trying to build up, and I wouldn’t be able to leave my house again. But now I’m okay. I can go outside without losing my shit. I can film videos without crying afterward. I can have fun again." He pauses for a minute or so, just letting those heavy words tumble around the room. "And then I moved here. And even though Martyn, my brother, came over like, twice a week, and my parents are only an hour away, I realised how alone I was. I would forget to take my meds and I wouldn’t leave the flat again. I wouldn’t buy groceries, I wouldn’t order food. So I needed someone to live with."

"And here I am," I say.

Phil nods sincerely but they way he’s kneading his hands lets me suspect I only just scratched the surface. "And I’m glad you’re… well, I’m glad it’s you. Because I don’t think I have ever felt less alone."

 

I know I shouldn’t feel butterflies. I know I shouldn’t — for two reasons. One: Phil just told me a traumatic story and basically laid himself completely open for me to see. Two: I definitely shouldn’t feel butterflies when thinking about boys.

I’ve been over this in my head for so many goddamn times in the past twenty-four hours. And it’s always the same circle I fall back into: I allow myself to open the box in my brain and let the confusion out, I try to sort through it, I admit to myself that I have had crushes on boys before and am definitely now developing a rather huge one on the man I’m living with, I feel guilty, I deny, I shove everything back inside, and shut the box.

Tonight, though, I refuse to open the box wide enough to let everything slip out. I manage to keep everything inside except for _I have a crush on Phil_. I allow myself to think about it, to test the sound of it inside my head, and I come to the conclusion that I like it.

But then I feel the butterflies and everything becomes a little too much.

 

Phil and I fall asleep on the couch. It would not seem possible for two 6’3-giants like us to fall asleep in our respective sofa creases with our feet awkwardly propped up on the coffee table between stacks of dirty dishes, but we manage.

 

***

 

I wake up at the asscrack of dawn with every vertebra in my spine screaming in pain and my neck stiff. I get up, my entire body cracks, and stumble into the bathroom. For the first time in three weeks, there is no contact lens pot on the tap for me to knock over.

I shower, first so hot it leaves my skin all splotchy, then icy cold to clear my mind.

 _I need to talk about this. Properly._ About everything that is going on inside my head. About the fact I woke up with my head leaned against Phil’s shoulder. About the butterflies I have shoved back into the box.

 

**Marcia (6:02 am):** _i may be smart but i have no idea how time zones work isn’t it the next day for you now? so how was meeting the mother?_

 

I almost laugh out loud at the coincidence of that. It’s almost like Marcia’s brain is somehow connected to mine and she just _knows_ I need to talk about something.

 _But what would I say? Just that I like_ someone _? That wouldn’t really bring across the point quite as much, would it?_

But before I can get too into my head again, now outside of the safety of the shower steams, there is a knock on the door. "Dan?"

"Yeah?"

"Uh… I like, _really_ need to pee."

I quickly run the towel over my shoulders before wrapping it around my waist and reaching for the doorknob. Out of the corner of my eye I catch a glimpse of my own reflection in the foggy mirror and am somehow reminded of _who_ is standing outside that door and the inner turmoil that comes along with him.

I’m not exactly muscular or athletic. I could probably use some working out. I’m also not adorably lanky like Phil. I’m just… I don't know.

I shake my head. Now is definitely not the time to get lost in insecurities.

Phil’s cheeks are flushed red when I open the door and I swear, the faint dusting of freckles on them actually starts to glow when his eyes fall onto my naked chest. "Oh. Uh. S-sorry."

"’s okay," I fight the urge to cross my arms in front of my chest, "The bathroom shall be yours now." _Oh god, Dan, please shut up._ "Do you want breakfast already?"

"Just coffee please."

 

Drinking coffee transitions into eating cereal eventually. Phil’s head is leaned against the backrest of the sofa. He isn’t quite as chipper as usual and I wonder whether he feels weird about sharing the story about Ian.

"I don’t think it’s healthy that we spend all our time on this couch," he says between two spoons of — _of course_ , Crunchy Nut.

"Don’t know about you but please don’t shame how I choose to spend my summer, okay?"

"Not shaming," he says, "Just judging. You still don’t have furniture."

"Excuse me?" I place a hand over my heart in mock offence, "If you go into my room, what do you see?"

"Well… a bed and a dresser but—"

"And those aren’t furniture?"

"You know what I mean," Phil rolls his eyes and nudges his shoulder against mine. We’re sitting a little closer than usual.

I sigh, "I told you I’m a minimalist."

"You have a lot of hair products flying around in the bathroom for a minimalist," Phil counters.

"Fine!" I let my spoon fall into my bowl. It creates a dramatic clinking noise. "I’ll get a desk and a chair and maybe, if I’m feeling wild, a mirror or art for the wall."

Phil giggles, "Don’t go overboard, Daniel."

 

I finish my cereal first because Phil, in all seriousness, stands up, walks into the kitchen, and pours himself another bowl with _my_ cornflakes.

"You fucking rat," I say when he comes back.

"I can’t help it," he cries.

"At least buy more than one carton at the supermarket so there’s enough for both of us!"

"Sorry!" he drags the word out longer than he needs to and flops back down on the sofa. The episode of _Adventure Time_ on tv is almost over. "Hey, Dan?"

"What?"

"When are you leaving today?"

_Oh. I almost forgot about that._

"Uh," I make, quickly checking the time on my phone. Nine in the morning. "I think around noon-ish? I don’t want to get there too early, you know."

Phil nods, "And how long will you be gone?"

My stomach twinges with the memory of yesterday’s conversation. _Phil hates being alone._ "One or two nights, I reckon. I’m just going to inhale all the cake and jump back on the next train."

Phil nods slowly.

"You okay?" I ask gently.

"Yeah," Phil says.

Before I can think twice about it, I place a hand loosely on his knee. "Thanks for telling me about Ian," I say.

Phil’s knuckles become white from how hard he’s holding onto the spoon and the cereal bowl. "It’s… Uhm. Thanks for listening. Just. Sorry. I always feel a little weird after I tell people about it. That’s why I don’t do it, normally. Because they all look at me differently once they know what I have been through. Like I could break again at any time."

My hand feels so warm and comfortable where it’s laying, it’s almost like it has melted into Phil’s leg and I don’t know where my body ends and his begins. "Could you?"

He thinks for a moment, then shakes his head. "Not that easily."

"So you’ll be fine without me?"

"Well," a faint blush starts to creep up his cheeks, "I’ll definitely be bored out of my mind and probably text and send you a lot of annoying snaps because all I’ll be doing is play Fortnite but—"

"If you win Fortnite without me I’m going to sue," I warn him.

"What a lawyer thing to say," he bites his lip.

 

***

 

I arrive at home just in time for dinner. My phone is already exploding with texts from Phil but I have had to ignore them for most of the train ride because I didn’t want my phone to die and leave me without music.

Now I’m sitting next to my younger brother, Adrian, typing under the table while ignoring my family, the growling in my stomach, as well as the plate full of lasagna in front of me.

"Daniel James Howell."

 _Whoops_. If your mum busts out the full name at twenty-one, you should definitely stop whatever you’re doing and rethink all your life choices.

"Sorry," I mumble, locking my phone.

 

I’m not going to lie, even though my grandma isn’t around, dinner with my family isn’t bad. It’s kind of nice, actually. Mum and Dad each tell little stories of what had happened to them at work and Adrian is a moody but quiet teenager. I’m surprised my dad doesn’t ask for exam results, although I have a feeling Mum had told him not to.

Even though it’s almost July now, I still get my birthday presents. A gift card from Ikea, "I bet you’re still living out of that tiny suitcase of yours", and another one from Topman, "You really need new jeans, Dan, those have rips in them!".

I almost roll my eyes at that.

Mum asks me to talk about Phil and says she’s glad that I seem to have found a good friend in him. It’s probably the most emotional thing she has ever said to me.

"Is he still in uni, too?" Dad asks.

"Uh, no. He graduated from York earlier this year," I say.

"So he’s working now."

"Kinda."

"What’s that supposed to mean?" Dad raises his eyebrows, "Surely he does have a job. You’re not paying the rent on your own, are you?"

"Of course not," I say, fighting the urge to roll my eyes, "He does have a job. He… uh, he does Youtube."

"Youtube?" It’s the first time Adrian’s spoken up all evening.

I nod.

"What’s his name again?" He’s already drawn out his phone.

I ignore him and instead brace for the judging looks of my parents. And of course they come. And they hurt. I don’t know why, though. It’s not me who’s making Youtube videos, after all. Even though it had been a lot of fun to film with Phil. Way more fun than studying law had ever been.  
But if my parents are looking at me like this just because _my_ _flatmate_ does something unconventional like Youtube for a living, what would they do if I dropped out of law school?

Because that’s something I’m considering. I mean, I guess it had been kind of inevitable from the start, really. I always knew I’d never be good enough to make it through til the end, and lately, with the dawning realisations of my feelings for Phil, I seem to be on some kind of truth roll.

_I really need to talk to Marcia._

 

Thankfully, I can bullshit my way out of ice cream for dessert. Which is unheard of. But I just can’t eat any more right now, even if I wanted to. It’s almost like all these confessions are piling up inside of me, and now they’ve reached my throat. _I need to say it out loud._

 **Dan (8:02 pm):** _hey wuu2?_

I’m in the bathroom upstairs. My parents and Adrian are still down in the kitchen, finishing their Mövenpick. When Marcia doesn’t reply immediately, I lock my phone and wash my hands for no particular reason. I stare at the water washing away the bubbles of soap, watch them disappear down the drain, before I finally look up and meet the eyes of my reflection in the mirror.

Only a month ago I wouldn’t have thought I’d be here, in this particular situation with an almost uncontrollable urge that feels like heartburn in my throat. The desire to say it. To test it. To hear what it sounds like. To see what it feels like.

"I am gay," I say. My voice sounds alien in the tiled room, much deeper than usual.

I wait for the shame to hit me.

It never comes.

All there is is doubt. And it’s almost worse than shame or guilt would be, because it makes the whole thing even more uncertain. _You’re not gay, Dan, think again._

And I know it. And I have known for a while, deep down inside, buried under the safety of being in a relationship that was never more than straight _passing_. But I’m tired of thinking. I wish there was someone to say it for me, to give me instructions on how to act on this realisation. But I’m alone. And that makes me think of Phil.

"I am," I try to swallow, but the confession is too thick to keep inside for any longer, "I’m—"

My phone buzzes then. It feels like relief and disappointment at the same time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was definitely one of my favourite chapters to write so far!! let me know what you think!


	9. phil is not on fire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much again for all the comments and kudos!! 🖤  
> this one is the shortest chapter so far, but it's kind of on purpose

**Phil (8:12 pm):** _ik this is the hundredth time I’m texting you but it’s important this time I swear_

 

I lock the door of my room behind me and flop down on my old bed. It’s an ugly single one with ugly brown bedsheets in my ugly old room. My room is much smaller than Adrian’s because unlike him, I never had any real hobbies except playing video games and therefore never needed much space, my parents reckoned. I couldn’t care less to be honest.

It’s crazy to think how fast I go back to the person I once was as soon as I enter my family home. I feel small again. Not in the sense of body height because god knows I’m tall enough, but in the sense of never being good enough. I’ll always be too small to reach the expectations people have for me.

 

 **Dan (8:15 pm):** _sorry iphone batteries suck i didn’t use my phone all day and it still only has twenty percent left_

 **Dan:** _what’s up?_

 

The three dots pop up immediately. I smile at the thought of Phil stretched out on either the sofa or his bed, eagerly waiting for me to text him back.

 

**Dan:** _also sorry for not replying all day :(_

 

 **Phil:** _That’s okay! I can be quite annoying when I’m bored but I did give you a warning_ 😂

 

 **Dan:** _you’re never annoying phil_

 

**Phil (8:18 pm):** _About the video_

**Phil:** _I edited and uploaded it but it’s not public yet because I want you to watch it first and tell me if it’s okay for you._

 

I feel the well-known warmth rising up in my chest.

 

 **Dan:** _dunno why i wouldn’t be okay with it since i agreed to filming it in the first place but sure just send me the link_

 

 

The video starts with Phil giggling and his tongue poking out between his teeth as I cover my face with both my hands and groan deeply. Then a jump cut to Phil’s regular opening line of _"Hey guys!"_ with a waving hand. I’m ducked away but my back is still peeking into the frame a tiny bit. _How professional._

Once I finally sit up and Phil introduces me, I feel the weird feeling begin. It’s not exactly a cringe. Or maybe it is, because how does one not cringe at hearing their own voice? But it’s a little different, a little further away, because I almost don’t recognise the person next to Phil on the screen.

The light from all the different lamps in the room bounces off the white walls and smoothes my face and hair out. My eyes look bigger and darker and you can see my collarbones peeking out of the neckline of my t-shirt. But the thing that is most alien is the wide smile on my face. I feel like I must wear that facial expression around Phil a lot, because it does look natural in a way, but I have never seen my face that dimpled and that happy before.

 

"So I’m here today with my new flatmate… or… just my flatmate as I didn’t have another one before, anyway…" Phil on the screen laughs breathily and his eyes drop to the person that’s hiding out of frame. With a much lower voice, he adds, "That’s the part where you…"

"Oh, do I come up now? Sorry." There’s shuffling and then Dan’s head and upper body pops into frame, smiling widely. He salutes the camera, "Hello, Internet!"

"Right," Phil says, "So this is Dan. Or Daniel. How do you want my friends to call you?"

"Dan is fine," Dan shrugs, "Daniel sounds too pastel-y, which is not the vibe I’m going for here."

Phil laughs breathily, it _almost_ sounds a little nervous, and looks straight into the camera, "I guess some of you already know Dan! He has a Twitter account that is quite popular, I’ll link it in the description. His username is Dani—"

"If you do it, I’m going to decapitate you right here and right now, Philip Michael Lester."

Phil’s eyes glimmer mischievously, "… snot on fiyah." He sings the last word.

Dan covers his face with both his hands and releases a groan from deep within and Phil cackles like he just made the joke of the century.

Jump cut.

Dan rolls his eyes at Phil’s lame explanation of why he now has a flatmate. He laughs, "What Phil is trying to say, you all, is that he’s terribly afraid of home invasion."

"That is…" Phil starts to protest but stops himself, "… true actually."

"So I’m more of a security guy than a flatmate, really," Dan grins.

"You’d make a terrible security guy with your fear of the dark," Phil counters.

"Oi!" Dan shoves his shoulder against Phil’s hard enough that it actually makes an impact and knocks him out of frame for the fraction of a second, "Don’t tell 'em that!"

The whole video is one long banter, only divided by jump cuts and questions they ask each other. They start out kind of formal, asking for Dan’s name and what’s the best and worst thing about living with _AmazingPhil_ is.

"Best thing is definitely playing video games and watching anime together," Dan says, then he cocks his head sideways and looks at Phil pensively, "Worst thing… Where do I start…"

"Oi!" Phil makes, grinning into the camera.

Dan takes a deep breath and then rattles down a list of things in an incredibly fast speaking voice, "You eat all _my_ cereal, you leave cupboard doors open, never empty the dishwasher, leave your contact lens pot on the tap in the bathroom, and put the empty milk carton back into the fridge."

The questions become more random towards the end and so do Dan and Phil, answering them in a more and more quirky way, perfectly edited by post-filming Phil.  
At some point, they’re asked to do their best cat imitations and Dan grabs a sharpie from Phil’s nightstand and draws actual whiskers on his friend’s face. Phil does the same. They both look ridiculous but somehow, it works.

"Important question for science!" Dan reads aloud from Phil’s phone, "Does Phil ever secretly quiff it up?"

"I do not betray my branding!" Phil protests immediately. The wide grin he wears on his face has not vanished once for the past ten minutes. His nose is smudged black from the sharpie and he took off his hoodie halfway through the video, leaving him in a simple white shirt.

Dan and Phil look like day and night next to each other, different but kind of the same, like polar opposites of desaturation in front of the colourful background that is Phil’s bedroom.

Dan looks up from Phil’s phone and his eyes wander over his friend’s face for a couple seconds. "Not really," he says, still not facing the camera. Then he reaches his hand out carefully and traces the line of Phil’s black fringe across his forehead. His eyes flicker down to the lower part of Phil’s face a couple of times.

He catches himself at just the right time.

"Actually. Sometimes. You have quite an insane bedhead, mate," Dan drops his hand, "Phil looks like Monty Mole on crack when he comes out of his room in the morning without his glasses on."

They both laugh.

The video ends after that question. There’s another jump cut and Phil draws the conclusion, telling the viewers to subscribe and check out his latest video and maybe even Dan’s Twitter. Dan sits beside him and nods along, then, a second before the time of the video runs up, he says, "This was the most fun I’ve ever had".

The last frame is them smiling directly into the camera with their shoulders pressed into each other.

 

 **Phil (8:35 pm):** _So what do you think?_

 

I watch the video again. And again. And again. The title, _Phil Is Not On Fire_ , makes me smile, the beginning of the video makes me laugh, and the end makes me fall.

If there was any doubt before it is now completely erased. _I have a crush on Phil_.

 _And how could I not?_ I watch the video twice with the focus on him and find myself almost feeling nauseated from the jittery feeling in my tummy.

 

**Phil (8:52 pm):** _Should I post it?_

 

Watching the last segment of the video, me touching Phil’s forehead and both of us laughing — it almost feels like a private moment. I’m not sure if it had felt like that when we were filming. I’m pretty sure it didn’t, I’m pretty sure it had felt all natural, I’m pretty sure I completely forgot about the camera at some point.

 _Not sure if that’s a good thing_.

I watch the video again, trying to see it through the eyes of someone else. And it makes sense. Looking at the footage pretending I’m someone else works. The video instantly becomes even funnier and the ending, even though I cannot justify the kind of lingering look on my face when I touch Phil’s hair, seems like a short snippet in comparison to all the other question-scenes and makes a good conclusion.

 

**Phil (9:00 pm):** _Dan?_

 

**Dan (9:03 pm):** _do it_

 

**Phil:** _You sure?_

 

**Dan:** _yes_

 

I get the notification three minutes later.

> @AmazingPhil tweeted: ✨ Meet my flatmate in my new video! 👯♂️ Phil Is Not On Fire 🔥▶️ youtube.com/watch/linklmao

 

I don’t watch the video again. I do quite the opposite. I close my laptop. I get up, change into a pair of sweatpants, unlock the door of my room, and head downstairs. Adrian has disappeared into his room and my parents have migrated to their respective seats in the living room, watching something that looks like true crime.

I sneak into the kitchen and grab a bowl and a spoon. I find the ice cream within seconds and fill the bowl with probably way too much, trying not to make any loud noises. I may now be in the mood for ice cream but definitely still not for conversation.

Mum sees me when I step on the stairs again and gives me a little shake of her head, but a faint smile traces her lips. I duck my head, wordlessly pretending something like embarrassment, and she nods, dismissing me back into my room.

My phone lights up with a new text message just when I close the door behind myself.

 

**Phil (9:37 pm):** _Hey Dan?_

 

**Dan:** _yeah?_

 

 **Phil:** _Are we okay?_

 

I can’t help the fuzzy feeling that’s rising up inside me _again_. My body has been on more than just a simple roller coaster ride today, it’s been through a fricking emotional plane crash. I set my ice cream down on the nightstand next to my bed.

 

 **Dan:** _of course we are_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> can i just say... rip pinof :/


	10. home

My grandma comes over and saves the next day. I guess there was only so long my dad could hold the question "So how did exams go?" inside before busting it out over breakfast eventually.

Luckily, it’s a Monday and both my parents have to work and Adrian still has half a week of school left before summer holidays begin, so I manage to _um_ and _err_ my way out of the conversation.

Mum asks me a full-on questionnaire about Marcia and what she’s up to in America. I just shrug and almost fall asleep over my eggs on toast. I certainly did not come here to be awoken at half eight in the morning and interrogated about my ex-girlfriend.

So my mood is digging a hole for itself. Especially when I discover that Adrian moved the Playstation into his room and made a habit out of locking it before leaving for school.

Frustrated, I kick my foot against his door, cursing.

"Daniel?" a voice echoes up the stairs.

My heart loops immediately and I couldn’t care less about the gaming console locked away from me. I turn on my heel and bolt downstairs, ignoring the last three steps by just jumping over them, directly into the arms of my grandma.

She’s much shorter than me, round-faced, and curly haired.

"Looks like someone did miss me after all," she tuts into my chest.

"Of course," I say, slowly letting go of her.

"Sorry I couldn’t come over for dinner yesterday, dear," she says, reaching a hand up to push my fringe, that somehow is still straight, off my forehead, "It was Sudoku night, you know how it is."

I grin.

"You need a hair cut, Bear," she shakes her head, "And a shower."

I think the word _Bear_ from her warms my heart more than any word from my parents ever could. "I know," I say, "I didn’t expect you to be here before noon."

"Well, I didn’t expect you to be _up_ before noon," she grins too and we slowly move into the kitchen, "I wanted to prepare your cake before you wake up. But I brought meringues!"

That simultaneously makes me want to hug her again and check my phone. _I still haven’t heard from Marcia._

 

Nana bans me from the kitchen half an hour of chit chat later as she wants to prepare my very-belated birthday cake and also "You really need a shower, young man!". So I run back upstairs, send Phil an excited message that just says _CAKE!!_ , and shower.

 

 **Phil (12:23 pm):** _Can you bring leftover cake with you back home??_

 

 **Dan:** _uuuhhh i don’t think there will be any left because i. will. eat. it. all. but i’m sure my grandma will force some other food on me to take back with me anyway_

 **Dan:** _don’t we have leftovers from your mum still?_

 

 **Phil:** _Uh, yeah, technically, but can you ever have enough food in the fridge?_

 

**Dan:** _damn u got a point there mate_

**Dan:** _it’s probably a good thing otherwise we would actually spend millions of pounds on takeaway and idk if one youtube video a week could finance that_

 

 **Phil:** 😂

 **Phil:** _Did you look at the comments by the way?_

 

 **Dan:** _no kinda busy talking to nana. did u?_

 

 **Phil:** _Not yet._

 **Phil:** _I normally reply to some tweets after every upload and read the comments right away but I kind of fell asleep halfway through watching New Moon yesterday._

 

I actually _giggle_ at my phone. I’m standing in the middle of the kitchen, my grandma crouched down to look through the oven glass and inspect how the cake is doing, and I _giggle_. Out loud.

She turns her head, "What is it, Bear?"

I shake my head, "Nothing. Just a text from Phil."

"Ah, your flatmate, right?" she says, "Show me a picture!"

"Uh," I make, finishing my reply to Phil, "Okay, hold on."

 

**Dan:** _i was like obsessed with the twilight saga in 2010_

**Dan:** _new moon was the worst tho_

 

**Phil:** _Strongly agreed._

 

I open Phil’s Instagram because even though I’m all warm, jittery, and, dare I say it, happy inside, I do not have any pictures of him saved on my phone.

"Oh no!" my grandma cries as I tilt my phone for her to look at the photo, "He has the same hair as you!"

"Nana!" I protest, "That’s— Can you not?"

"Why are you youngins doing that? One day, you’ll burn your hair off with those straighteners." As if on cue she swipes a hand through my fringe again. It’s still a little warm from when I straightened it a few minutes ago after my shower.

"I think his hair is naturally straight, Nana."

"Still not an excuse for that haircut."

"Nana!"

"I’m sorry, Bear," she smiles and takes a small step closer, looking back at the picture, "He does look nice, though. Very blue eyes."

"Yeah," I say awkwardly, eager to pull my phone away and lock it. _Why does it feel like she’s judging Phil not as my flatmate but as something more than that?_ I mean, she’s clearly not. But it feels like it.

 

***

 

Adrian is one spoiled brat, he really is, as he gets to eat cake for lunch today. As I predicted, with me, the natural greedy monster when it comes to food, and Adrian, literally in the middle of puberty, the cake does not last very long.

We sit together for a little while after that and just talk. Adrian and I don’t break out into an argument once, which truly is unheard of. Maybe time apart did us some good.

He disappears into his room again with the excuse to "do homework" which probably translates to "make use out of the Playstation that I locked in there", and Nana and I stay sat at the kitchen table, playing _Scrabble_.

We talk about a lot of things, starting with university. It’s easier to talk to her about these things. I don’t tell her that at this point, I’m _terrified_ of checking for the exam results, or that I _desperately_ want to drop out, though. We just talk about the nice things, because there _are_ some things I’m actually good at. I just don’t see them anymore because everything is overshadowed by the fact that I do not want to do this for a living. Focusing on them for a while is good though.

Then we talk about Marcia, but there is not so much to say. I know Nana is still sad we broke up. _Everyone but Marcia and I_ is still sad about the end of that relationship. For some reason, that only strengthens me in the thought that it was the right thing to end it.

We end up talking about Phil, and living in Manchester with Phil, and living in my own apartment with Phil the longest. I tell Nana that he does "this Youtube thing" for a living and she exclaims enthusiastically that she has just recently read an article about that. I even get my laptop from upstairs and show her our video.

I catch a glimpse at the views. _Two hundred thousand_. I swallow.

"You are glowing!" Nana exclaims, "Look at you! Those dimples, Daniel, I haven’t seen those in so long!"

I promptly smile at her, showing her them in real life.

After the video, I have a feeling she looks at me a little differently. She’s still smiling and actively following the conversation, but it’s almost like I can see two wires connect behind her eyes.

And that makes me want to throw up.

 

***

 

**Phil (7:02 pm):** _I can’t believe this, I’ve never gotten so many comments!_

 

**Dan:** _i literally played scrabble all day pls tell me they’re good ones_

 

**Phil:** _They are amazing! Everyone loves you!_

**Phil:** _Like, at least ten percent of the comments are asking, no, DEMANDING for you to make your own channel_ 😄

**Phil:** _Have you checked your Twitter?_

 

**Dan:** _no and at this point i’m scared to_

 

**Phil:** _You have like, almost a hundred thousand followers now._

 

 **Dan:** _WHAT_

**Dan:** _PHIL I’M EATING DINNER WITH MY FAMILY AND I JUST CHOKED ON MY BROCCOLI_

 

"Daniel James Howell."

 _The full name again._ I lock my phone, shove it under my thigh, and look up innocently.

We’re eating as a family again — with my grandma this time. There has been more family time in the past twenty-four hours than in all my life. My grandma sits in her seat and smiles knowingly at me.

"Sorry," I say, pushing my peas around on my plate. I’m not really hungry, even though the cake odyssey was a good six hours ago. I can feel my phone buzzing angrily under my leg. _One, two, three new messages. Now four._

It’s my second night of rejecting dessert. _I don’t even know what’s going on._ All I want to do is look at my phone. Get on the next train home. _Home_.

The corners of my grandma’s mouth tug downward and my parents exchange a Look when I announce I will be heading back to Manchester sometime tomorrow.

I squirm in my seat, "I haven’t brought any textbooks and… You know, gotta stay on track with uni stuff, otherwise I’m going to forget everything over the summer." I throw in a little nervous laughter. Mum still looks a little skeptical but Dad nods approvingly.

 

Adrian is on dishwasher duty tonight and of course he’s non-stop rolling his eyes. I escort Nana to the front door.

"Thanks for the cake," I say while hugging her.

She stiffens in my embrace for a second, then she shoves me away gently. "I almost forgot! Your actual present! I have it— I…" She begins scanning the pockets of her light cardigan. "Ah. Here it is."

She hands me an envelope. I raise my eyebrows.

She nods, "Go on then, open it."

And. I could absolutely cry right now. Actually, I think I am already tearing up. I pull her into another hug, even tighter than the last one, clutching the envelope in my hand, completely crinkling the festival tickets in there.

"You and Marcia loved going to Reading every year and I… I got the tickets when you were still together and then I wasn’t sure about… And she’s obviously gone now, but maybe Phil—"

"Nana." It’s a sob. It’s an actual sob and I don’t even know why. "I love you."

"Oh, I love you, too, Bear." She pats my back, "I’m glad you like it."

Maybe it’s because I saw the wires behind her eyes connecting earlier today and receiving this gift from her feels like acceptance. That she _knows_ but she also understands I’m still her Dan, her Bear.

 _Could she really know?_ I _don’t even really know._

 _I definitely, definitely need to figure this out._ But somehow I feel like going back home to Manchester will help a great deal with that.

 

***

 

I ignore all of Phil’s messages when I come back into my room, still grinning with wet eyes.

**Dan (8:22 pm):** _PHILIP FORGET EVERYTHING_

**Dan:** _MY NANA GOT ME TICKETS FOR READING FESTIVAL IN AUGUST_

 

**Phil:** _Oh that’s awesome!_

 

**Dan:** _PHI-IL_

**Dan:** _she goT ME TWO TICKETS_

**Dan:** _two as in 2 as in zwei as in deux if you know what i’m saying_

 

**Phil:** _Ohhhh_

 

**Dan:** _do i really have to ask formally_

 

 **Phil:** 😋

**Phil:** _Yes, please._

 

Butterflies. No, a swarm of bees. No, fucking hornets. In my tummy, in my head, in each of my limbs. I’m lying on my shitty bed on my back, arms stretched out to the ceiling, holding my phone, and I’m actually shaking a little bit.

 

**Dan:** _*clears throat* Philip Michael Lester_

 

**Phil:** _Yes?_

 

**Dan:** _will you go to reading festival with me?_

 

**Phil:** _Oh my God_

**Phil:** _Of course!!_

**Phil:** _*tackle hugs you*_

 

I call him immediately after that. I _never_ call anyone. Normally, phone calls are what I avoid at all costs, but I just need to hear his voice. It feels like a primal instinct to tap the call button next to his name and wait for him to pick up.

We talk about everything for a little too long. First about Reading Festival and all the memories I have from past years of it, sleeping in a tent in the mud because England’s summer is rain with a side of sun at best. Then about my Nana and how truly amazing she is. A little about Phil’s grandparents who apparently have a house on the Isle Of Man that he frequently visits with his whole family. Then about the Phil Is Not On Fire video. I’m still not looking at the comments but I let Phil tell me about them. My cheeks are burning hot by the third time he reads a comment out loud that says _"dan should really have his own channel or at least be in more of your videos he’s hilarious and kind of really cute not gonna lie"_. Phil laughs at the half-excited, half-embarrassed noises I make and just says, "Well, it’s true." and I… _I just really can’t for a moment._

With him still talking, now about the Eclipse movie that was on tv tonight, I finally open Twitter. I’m glad Phil gave me a warning earlier so I don’t completely shit myself when I see the follower count and the number of mentions I have.

"I just think it would be absolutely hilarious if they made a remake of it," Phil says, "but like, with the same actors. But no rehearsing or whatever. Just put them on the spot and let them react the scenes from memory. I would piss myself."

I laugh at that, even though I’m more listening to just his voice than what he’s actually talking _about_. I tap on the New Tweet icon and start typing.

 

@danisnotonfire tweeted: wow what gate of hell opened that i suddenly have so many followers wtf hi children

 

@danisnotonfire tweeted: also i’m on the phone with phil as i went to visit my family for a couple of days and somehow we went from talking about music to him fangirling over anna kendrick so this is my life now

 

"Hey!" Phil finally stops rambling about the Twilight saga, "I’m not _fangirling,_ I’m just saying she’s funny."

"Right," I chuckle, "But it’s your fault I have so many followers so you better be okay with becoming the subject of interest in a lot of my tweets because I have a feeling I have to tweet a whole lot more than just once every other day now."

"I’ll sacrifice myself," he sighs dramatically, "Anyway. When are you planning to come home?"

_Home._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the next chapter is going to be a lil more uhhh juicy and interesting so stay tuned


	11. ketchup

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> remember when i said i'm the biggest sucker for original (side)characters? well that was the truth so here ya go

Nana comes over the next morning right as Mum, Dad, and Adrian leave the house after breakfast. Actually, I haven’t eaten anything yet, I’m still on my first cup of plain black coffee. Mum raised her eyebrows and shook her head at me as if me drinking something other than Ribena is an earth-shattering new sensation.

After a bowl of cereal in comfortable silence and another cup of coffee, Nana sneaks a Tupperware box full of Meringues into my backpack.

"I put the recipe in there, too," she says, "Maybe you two fancy to bake sometime."

"That would probably end in a disaster," I laugh.

She drives me down to the train station an hour later, it’s not even noon, and waits with me until my train arrives. I hug her and promise to come down again soon, which for her, I probably will.

"Maybe even bring Phil," she says against my chest, "I’d love to meet him."

 

The train journey is long and boring with rain splashing against the window, and I sit cramped in a seat with my backpack in my lap next to an old man who smells like the personification of a cigar.

The internet is kind of shit but I manage to google the line-up for Reading festival and send it to Phil. He’s as excited as I am. Turns out we can connect over more bands than just _Muse_.

Phil is waiting for me at Manchester Piccadilly station with two coffee cups in hand. I take one from him in lieu of hello and we hug. Well, it’s something between an actual embrace and an awkward brushing of our chests and I don’t even know who initiated it, but it still sends my heart into overdrive.

Of course, the rain hasn’t stopped. I’m glad I decided to wear a hoodie today, even though it is quite warm still, but the downpour is merciless and by the time Phil and I get home, I’m completely soaked to the bone. Phil laughs and pats my hair. It must be a curly mess by now.

I win the race to the shower and — the adult I am — stick my tongue out to Phil before slamming the door in his face. I can still hear his laughter through the wall as he wanders back into the living room.

I take my time under the hot water. Even though I’ve been back in Manchester for merely an hour, I already need some time to think, relax, and maybe even… take care of _some things_.

It’s downright silly, the way Phil’s and my awkward hug is still fresh in my mind. But he smelled so good, a little minty mixed with the scent of the coffee he was holding. And he laughed breathily into my ear.

The sound is still echoing inside of me as I sink back against the wall of the shower, trying to catch my breath. My legs feel like jelly and the water burns my skin, but I can’t seem to care.

 

***

 

Marcia finally texts me back, after two days of radio silence, when Phil and I are in the lounge, eating a cold buffet of leftovers still from his mum.

 

**Marcia (7:44 pm):** _omg dan hi_

**Marcia:** _i’m so sorry_

**Marcia:** _you okay?_

 

I wipe my hands over the fabric of my pyjama bottoms and grab my phone.

 

**Dan:** _yeah i’m alright_

**Dan:** _did you not look at your phone for two days straight? who the fuck are you_

 

**Marcia:** _literally. i spent every minute of the last forty-eight hours with juliette and we’re not sick of each other yet can you believe_

 

**Dan:** _no i cannot. have you started talking about marvel yet?_

 

 **Marcia:** 😤

**Marcia:** _yes i have and guess what? she’s as much of a nerd as me_

 

**Dan:** _i do not believe this for a second_

 

**Marcia:** _ok maybe not as much but she comes close_

**Marcia:** _thor’s her favourite_

 

 **Dan:** _haha let me guess: because it’s chris hemsworth_

 

**Marcia (7:53 pm):** _uhh i don’t think so tbh. i mean idk. but. juliette is kinda… she’s into girls sooo_

 

I almost choke on the piece of bread I’ve been nibbling on. Phil throws me a puzzled look.

 

**Dan:** _OH_

**Dan:** _i mean that’s great_

 

**Marcia:** _yeah haha_

 

I stare at the text conversation on my phone screen. Watch the three dots appear and disappear again and again. I’m not hungry anymore. In fact, I don’t understand how I could have _ever_ felt hungry. There’s this weight in my stomach and it’s kind of taking over all of my senses, leaving me feeling boneless and numb.

 

**Dan (8:03 pm):** _hey can i maybe call you?_

**Marcia:** _yes_

 

I throw a glance at Phil but he seems to be busy on his own phone now, happily typing away and scrolling, so I just stand up and excuse myself to my bedroom just for a couple minutes.

As soon as I close the door behind me, I tap the call button next to Marcia’s name. _What is it with me and calling people lately, honestly?_

It rings once before she picks up. "Hey."

"Hi," I sit down on my bed, "What time is it for you?"

"Afternoon," she says, "I just went for a run, can you believe this?"

"For real?"

"Yeah," she laughs but it doesn’t sound entirely real, "Juliette and this guy called Henry persuaded me. It was horrible."

I huff a laugh through my nose and tilt my head up to the ceiling. There’s a small crack in the paint up there I haven’t noticed before.

"How’s Nana doing?"

"She’s great. She made meringues, of course," I say, "And she got me tickets for Reading for my birthday."

"What? Oh my god, that’s awesome, Dan!" she exclaims. Marcia is probably the only person in this world that _gets_ it, how much this festival means to me. _But does she also understand what it might mean that I go with Phil this year instead of her?_

"Yeah, I’m going with Phil."

She’s immediately silent. But it doesn’t feel like she’s surprised, offended, or even jealous. It feels like she’s waiting for me to say more.

"Mars?" I swallow.

"Yeah?"

_I can’t say it._

I think back to the situation in the bathroom back in Wokingham, staring into the eyes of my own reflection, saying something and feeling so wrong. _What if this feels wrong too? I can’t take it back once I’ve said it._

_I can’t say it._

I think back to Phil’s and my hug. How good it felt to see him again, how much I’d missed him even though I was only gone for three days and we texted and even called each other.

_I can’t say it._

I think back to the shower I took a couple hours ago. What I did. How good it felt.

_I can’t say it._

"Dan?" I can clearly hear Marcia breathing nervously, "Can… Can I tell you something?"

 _Oh._ I snap out of the spiralling thoughts that are drilling all the way through my body right into the heaviness in my stomach. "Y-yeah, of course," I say.

Silence for another minute.

"I think… I think I like someone." It sounds like the words stumble out of her mouth, and they probably do because she’s laughing nervously right after she’s said it.

"Oh. You… oh. Okay?" It sounds like a question. I hate to make this about me now but I’m a little taken aback that I _don’t_ feel any relief at the change of topic. _I_ want _to say it. But I_ can’t.

"Yeah," she swallows, "Is this weird?"

"No," I say, "Or. I mean, yeah, probably. But also no."

"Right." She laughs, and despite the breathy sound of it, it definitely sounds more genuine than before.

I might actually throw up. Everything indicates that that is right about to happen: I feel dizzy, I’m breaking out in a cold sweat, my hands are clammy. I lean forward and steady my elbows on my knees and fist one of my hands into my hair, pulling a little bit.

"I like someone, too."

This silence is worse. Because I can definitely feel that Marcia is _neither_ surprised, offended nor jealous. She’s _waiting_ again.

_I can’t say it._

I press my eyes shut. _Why is this so fucking hard for me? It’s not that complicated, it’s really not. Why am I such a coward? I can’t even admit the simplest things to myself, even when I know they ought to be true._

"Dan, are you crying?"

And I am. I mean, I’m not sobbing like I did when Nana gave me the festival tickets. It’s completely silent this time, I haven’t even noticed it, but the tears are running down my cheeks, they meet at the point of my chin, and drop into my lap.

"It’s okay," her voice is so gentle, I almost can’t hear it through the phone, "You’re okay."

"I don’t know who I am, Mar." My voice is much higher than normal. I don’t know what’s more embarrassing: the shrillness of it or the way it cracks towards the end as if I’m still in the middle of puberty.

"Shhh," she makes, "Yes you do. It’s okay."

_I can’t say it._

"It’s Phil." That comes out easier than the whole confession.

"Yeah. I figured," she says, her voice still calm and soothing.

"What does this mean, Mar?"

"I don’t know what it means to you, Dan," she says, "But I can tell you something: _Whatever_ it means, you will figure it out. And you can tell me. And I will not be mad."

_I can’t say it._

"I’m not gay."

There is another silence after that and this time, it’s so long I almost think the line broke and I’m completely alone.

"Okay," she says, "I’m not, either."

My eyes flutter open at that. Two more tears drop onto my cheeks and I wipe them away defiantly. "What’s that supposed to mean?"

"It means…" she sighs, but not of exhaustion, more so to prep herself, "It means there’s more than just gay and straight, Dan. And it means… It means that I like Juliette." Her next words are a stumbled mess again, but I can still understand them as if they’ve been spoken in slow motion, "And it means that I’m bi."

 

I’m the absolute worst person on planet earth. Because I don’t say anything. I can’t say anything. I want to protest, and scream, and laugh, all at the same time because _what the fuck is my life? What are the odds? What are the fucking chances of me_ and _my ex-girlfriend turning out to be queer?_

I stop sharp at that.

_I am, right? Queer? Because there is no chance I can be straight when I so clearly have the image of Phil’s hug in my brain when I wank._

And I mean, I _knew_. I knew, but I haven’t actually allowed myself to think it.

"Uh, Dan." Marcia sounds a little bit like she’s crying herself, "Do you want to hang up?"

"No," I protest immediately, "No."

"Okay."

"I just. I— What the fuck, Marcia, what the actual fuck." I chuckle, and it’s somehow happy and somehow not. It doesn’t quite reach my eyes that are still burning from the salty tears.

"I know," she giggles too.

"I love you."

"I know."

"And it’s okay."

"I know."

I fall back onto the mattress, pressing the phone to my ear. _Of course it’s okay. Of course it is. But why is it not okay when it’s_ me _, then?_

_I can’t say it._

"I can’t say it," I say out loud.

"Okay. I know. That’s alright," I can hear her smile, "It took me a long time to say it out loud too."

"Since… I know this question is stupid but… Did you know when we were…"

"Dating? Yes," she says, "I think I’ve known since I was like… about thirteen, maybe? I knew I had a thing for girls but I thought I wouldn’t have to come out with it if I just stuck to dating boys. And then, you know… I fell madly in love with you and all that shit — it was very convenient."

I laugh at that. And it’s real. The heaviness in my stomach is still there but it seems to become just a little lighter the more I open my mouth to laugh. Marcia does the same and I wonder if she feels the same too.

"It was real, though, wasn’t it?" I ask then, "Us?"

"Yes," Marcia says, "For me, it was, of course."

"It was for me, too," I say, "But…" I take a deep breath. "But now I like Phil and I’m a confused mess."

"Is Phil… You don’t— We don’t have to talk about this right now if you don’t want to," Marcia says.

"I _want_ to. I just don’t know how much I can actually _say_ and how much I can _think_ until I inevitably freak out."

Another laugh. "It’s okay. I’ve definitely been there. Just tell me when to stop."

"Should I use the safe word?" I grin.

"I can’t believe you’re bringing this back half a year after we stopped having sex, Daniel."

"Ketchup it is, then," I decide.

"I hate you." She’s still smiling, "But alright. Uhm. So. Is Phil like, the first boy you’ve ever, you know, liked, I guess?"

"Ketchup."

"Dan!"

"Fine." I clasp a hand over my eyes and press down until I see funny lights. "I don’t know. Yes. But also no. No, actually. Definitely no."

"You’re right, you _are_ a confused mess."

"I told you," I sigh, "Okay. For real though, no. Remember Pizza Lucas?"

"Oh my god."

"I know."

"We were dating then!"

"I was just _looking_."

"I cannot believe this," I can picture her shaking her head, curls falling into her face while she grins, "Anyway. Do you know… Like, do you know about Phil? Like, if he’s into boys?"

"Uh. No, I don’t know." And then I stop, "But. Wait. Juliette _is_ into girls, right?"

"Yeah."

"Marcia!"

"I _know_!" she laughs, "I’m working on it."

"This is so ridiculous," I shake my head, "What are we doing?"

"Well. I don’t know what _you’re_ doing, but I’m actually going to the movies later with my crush," she says, "And I guess you’ll be sitting on the sofa next to yours. Not bad either, if you ask me, mate."

"But I can’t… I can’t just… What do I do?"

"Depends," she shrugs, "Do you feel ready to do anything?"

_No._

_Yes._

"It’s… I…" The heaviness in my stomach has now completely transformed into pure heat. And everything of it is now rising up and pooling in my cheeks. It feels like my face is literally on fire. "I definitely want something to happen, you know. But I don’t feel ready to do something."

"Hm," she makes, "It’s okay, I reckon. Maybe find out if he’s into boys at all first. And then just… give it time. You know now how long I’ve been sitting on this."

"You could have told me before, you know. It would always have been okay."

"I know," she says, "I wanted to tell you before I left. And I… I had a feeling you wanted to tell me, too. I can’t say I _knew_ about you, but I kind of… I don’t know. I felt like there were things we both weren’t saying."

I nod even though she can’t see it.

"And I waited for you to say some of it."

"And I didn’t."

"That’s okay, though," she adds quickly.

"So. Now we’ve said it, right?" I ask.

Marcia doesn’t say anything for a moment, then her voice is gentle again. "I think for now we have. And I feel a lot better, to be honest."

"Me too."

"I love you," she says.

"And Juliette," I add mockingly because… _because I can_.

"Dan!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THANKS FOR ALL THE COMMENTS/KUDOS i know i'm saying this after every chapter but like i mean it soooo thank 🖤


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